Lessons for English speakers

Learn to read Spanish

A short, active path into reading Spanish: five vowels that never move, nine real words decoded before the alphabet, ser against estar, the verb ending that replaces the pronoun, and two short stories before your first book.

13 core sections · ≈ 34 min + 3 optional lookups · ≈ 50 min with everything

The script

4 sections

Your first reading job: five vowels that never move

≈ 3 min

What you'll learn

Spanish uses the alphabet you know and reads left to right.
Five vowel letters, five vowel sounds, and they do not wander the way English vowels do.
One vowel is one beat, and a final -e is said: nocheNOH-cheh“night” has two beats.
Fourteen letters and letter pairs surprise an English reader. They are the whole difficulty.
h is silent, and b and v are one and the same sound.

The five vowels

Letter	Sound	Example
a	ah, as in father — not the a of cat	casaKAH-sah“house”
e	eh, as in bed	verdeBEHR-deh“green”
i	ee, as in machine	mimee“my”
o	oh, as in more	solsohl“sun”
u	oo, as in rule	lunaLOO-nah“moon”

Two vowels side by side share one beat, and two hooks cover almost all of it: an i in front of another vowel is a y, and a u in front of another vowel is a w — lluviaYOO-byah“rain”, aguaAH-gwah“water”.

The letters that do not say what you expect

Letter	Sound to try	Example
h	nothing at all — silent in every word; only inside ch does it help make a sound	holaOH-lah“hello”
j	a rasped h, further back in the throat than English h	pájaroPAH-hah-roh“bird”
g before e or i	the same rasped h as j; everywhere else, g as in go	genteHEHN-teh“people”
ñ	ny, like the middle of canyon	niñoNEE-nyoh“boy, child”
ll	y, like the y of yes	lluviaYOO-byah“rain”
y	y as in yes; standing alone as a word, just ee	yoyoh“I”
r	one light tap of the tongue, like the tt in butter	peroPEH-roh“but”
rr	a rolled r, held; an r that starts a word is rolled too	perroPEH-rroh“dog”
z	s — never a buzz (much of Spain says th here; the letter lookup has the detail)	zorroSOH-rroh“fox”
c before e or i	s; everywhere else, k	cincoSEEN-koh“five”
v	b — Spanish makes no difference between b and v	vientoBYEHN-toh“wind”
ch	ch as in church, always	nocheNOH-cheh“night”
qu	k, and the u is never said	bosqueBOHS-keh“forest”
gu	before e or i, hard g with the u not said; before a or o, the u is an ordinary w	aguaAH-gwah“water”

Fourteen rows, and that is the list. Everything not on it — d, f, l, m, n, p, s, t — you can read as English and be understood. The letter cards with memory hooks live in the letter lookup; you do not need them to go on.

Catch the letter before it catches you

Say each one aloud from the table, then reveal.

perro and pero
One r or two is a difference in meaning, not a nicety.
Show answer +Hide answer −
perroPEH-rroh“dog” with a rolled r, and peroPEH-roh“but” with one tap.
viento
v is b, and ie is a single beat.
Show answer +Hide answer −
vientoBYEHN-toh“wind”
gente
In front of e, g borrows the sound of j.
Show answer +Hide answer −
genteHEHN-teh“people”