The Spanish Alphabet
How many letters are there in the English alphabet? Hint: There are 26 letters.
Now take a look at the Spanish alphabet below. How many letters do you see?
Now take a look at the Spanish alphabet below. How many letters do you see?
a |
b |
c |
ch |
d |
e |
f |
g |
h |
i |
j |
k |
l |
ll |
m |
n |
ñ |
o |
p |
q |
r |
rr |
s |
t |
u |
v |
w |
x |
y |
z |
If you counted 30 letters, you counted correctly. You probably noticed the four additional letters as you were counting: ch, ll, ñ, rr. It was not too long ago that the Spanish Alphabet looked like what you see above; consisting of these four extra letters. In fact, as recent as 1994, these letters were all apart of the official Spanish Alphabet. But since then, the Real Academia Española has eliminated three of these additional letters from the Spanish Alphabet: ch, ll, rr. To date, there is now only one additional letter in the Spanish Alphabet in comparison to the English Alphabet: that is the letter ñ.
So why even bother mentioning the other three letters that were originally a part of the Spanish Alphabet but are no longer? Their inclusion in this lesson are important for several reasons: (1) They are historical; meaning that the fact that they were once (not too long ago) part of the Spanish Alphabet should never be forgotten. (2) Because these letters were dropped in recent times, it is probably that you may someday pick up a dictionary and look up word, such as lluvia, and not be able to find it because you are looking under the wrong letter in the dictionary. Recent dictionaries will list the word lluvia under the letter l; however, in older dictionaries, you won't find it there; you need to look under the letter ll. (3) Lastly, there remain some Spanish resources that continue to include these letters in the Spanish Alphabet (especially with older textbooks and learning materials). It's good to know why these letters are being included. Whether you choose to learn them and include them in your own Spanish Alphabet is completely up to you.
So why even bother mentioning the other three letters that were originally a part of the Spanish Alphabet but are no longer? Their inclusion in this lesson are important for several reasons: (1) They are historical; meaning that the fact that they were once (not too long ago) part of the Spanish Alphabet should never be forgotten. (2) Because these letters were dropped in recent times, it is probably that you may someday pick up a dictionary and look up word, such as lluvia, and not be able to find it because you are looking under the wrong letter in the dictionary. Recent dictionaries will list the word lluvia under the letter l; however, in older dictionaries, you won't find it there; you need to look under the letter ll. (3) Lastly, there remain some Spanish resources that continue to include these letters in the Spanish Alphabet (especially with older textbooks and learning materials). It's good to know why these letters are being included. Whether you choose to learn them and include them in your own Spanish Alphabet is completely up to you.