2. Spanish Sounds 1

3. What is phonics? It is linking sounds with letters of the alphabet.

4. What are phonemes? They are the individual sounds in a word, e.g. amigo junio

5. Similarities between Spanish and English Both languages use the Roman alphabet. Many words are the same in both languages.

6. Can you work out the meanings of these Spanish cognates in English? noviembre helicóptero planeta elefante limón fantástico océano enorme televisión

7. November helicopter planet elephant lemon fantastic ocean enormous television

8. Differences between Spanish and English Both languages have 5 vowel letters, but there are 5 vowel sounds in Spanish and 12 in English. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet with 44 sounds, and 27 letters in the Spanish alphabet with 30 sounds. The extra letter in the Spanish alphabet is ‘ñ’.

9. There are 3 other letters that used to be part of the Spanish alphabet until recent times - ch, ll and rr - and which are still included in many resources. Facts about the Spanish alphabet - 1 Although these 3 letters are no longer in the most recent versions of the Spanish alphabet, their sounds still exist.

10. ‘ch’, ‘ll’ and ‘rr’ CHocolate amariLLo peRRo

11. The letters K and W do not exist in Spanish words unless the words originated in another country, e.g. koala, wok. In Spanish you must pronounce every single letter except ‘h’. Facts about the Spanish alphabet - 2

12. ¡Vamos a cantar!

13. Vowels The vowel sounds never change in Spanish

14. Words starting with vowels

15. abeja

16. elefante

17. iglesia

18. oveja

19. uvas

20. Say the words!

21. abeja elefante iglesia ovejauvas

22. Say the words!

24. Consonants Some are pronounced differently to English consonants

25. casa hard ‘c’ before ‘a’

26. cerdo soft ‘c’ - ‘th’ sound before ‘e’ in Spanish and ‘s’ sound in Latin America

27. ciclista soft ‘c’ - ‘th’ sound before ‘i’ in Spanish and ‘s’ sound in Latin America

28. coche The Spanish ‘ch’ is pronounced like the ‘ch’ in the word ‘church’

29. conejo hard ‘c’ before ‘o’

30. Say the words!

31. casacerdo ciclista cocheconejo

32. Say the words!

34. cucaracha hard ‘c’ before ‘u’

35. gato hard ‘g’ before ‘a’

36. genio ‘g’ before ‘e’ like ‘h’ in English

37. gimnasio ‘g’ before ‘i’ like ‘h’ in English

38. gordo hard ‘g’ before ‘o’

39. Say the words!

40. cucurachagato genio gimnasio gordo

41. Say the words!

43. gusano ‘hard’ g before u

44. helado ‘h’ is a silent letter in Spanish

45. jirafa ‘j’ in Spanish sounds like ‘h’ in English

46. amarillo ‘ll’ in Spanish sounds like ‘y’ sound in English

47. señorita ‘ñ’ is like ‘ny’ sound in English

48. Say the words!

49. gusanohelado jirafa amarilloseñorita

50. Say the words!

52. ratón ‘r’ at the beginning of a word has a vibrating sound

53. perro ‘rr’ has a vibrating sound too

54. ventana ‘v’- a soft, breathy ‘b’

55. xilófono ‘x’ at the start of a word is a bit like ‘s’ sound in English

56. zumo ‘z’ is ‘th’ sound in Spanish and like ‘s’ sound in Latin America

57. Say the words!

58. ratónperroventana xilófono zumo

59. Say the words!