Appendix: Spanish alphabet
From open-dictionary.com - the free dictionary.
This is the normal Spanish alphabet. However, words are not alphabetized by it. Please read the notes and sections below.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | C | Ch | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | Ll | M | N | Ñ | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
| a | b | c | ch | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | ll | m | n | ñ | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z |
| Notes about Ñ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ñ is the only new letter. It should always be alphabetized after N no matter where it appears in the word. (E.g. muñeca goes after mundo) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes about Ch and Ll | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ch and Ll are apart of the alphabet except they're digraphs. Since 1994, they are no longer alphabetized as if they were letters. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes about K and W | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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K and W are apart of the alphabet but are only seen in certain foreign derived words and names, such as karate and whisky. It's much like the Ñ in English (written N most of the times), seen only in words such as piñata or the original writing of canyon (cañon). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The "rr" digraph
Aside from Ch and Ll, "rr" is another common digraph but not considered apart of the alphabet by the Spanish Academy.
Acute accents
Spanish uses an ´ (acute) diacritical mark over vowels to indicate a vocal stress on a word that would normally be stressed on another syllable. Stress is contrastive. For example, the word ánimo is normally accented on a, meaning "mood, spirit," while animo is stressed on ni meaning "I cheer," and animó is stressed on mó meaning "he cheered."
Additionally Spanish uses the acute mark to distinguish certain words which would otherwise look the same ("homographs"). The acute accent is used in various question words or relative pronoun pairs such as cómo and como (how), dónde and donde (where), and also in some other words such as tú (you) and tu (your), él (he/him) and el (the).
| A | E | I | O | U | Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| á | é | í | ó | ú | ý |
Diaeresis
Spanish uses a ¨ (diaeresis, two dots) diacritical mark over the vowel u to indicate that the u is pronounced in places where it would normally be silent. In particular, the u is silent in the letter combinations gue and gui, but in words such as vergüenza (shame) or pingüino (penguin), the u is in fact pronounced, forming a diphthong with the following vowel: [we] and [wi] respectively.
