Learning the alphabet in spanish. Confused!
In my Spanish 1 class we learned "Ch" . Now that I am looking into things I found that many people don't use Ch but only C. Why is this? Is it used in Mexican Spanish? I plan on living in Mexico, so my main focus is learning Mexican Spanish. Is there anything else I should know about?
4 Answers
Ch was considered a separate letter at one time, but now we have C and H separately, so instead of say saying "che" as in the past, we now must say the two letters alone: ce, hache.
RR and LL were also leters in the past, but we now just say them twice, ie: "Calle" ce.a. ele.ele. e
This is not a regional thing, but a change in the Spanish usage by the RAE. If your teacher is using ch as a letter, then he/she is not up to date although this will not cause any misunderstandings among native speakers.
When I learned it 50 years ago it was a, be (grande, larga, alta), ce, che, de, e, efe, ge, hache, i, jota, ka, ele, elle, eme, ene, eñe, o, pe, cu, ere, erre, ese, te, u, ve (be chica) (now called uve), ve (uve) doble, equis, i griega, zeta
According to an article the RAE (la Real Academia Española) which sets the rules of acceptable Spanish usage: La i griega será ye, la b será be (y no be alta o be larga); la ch y la ll dejan de ser letras del alfabeto.
Here's a link to the article in Spanish which mentions other changes made in the language:
I traslated this:
A digraph is a group of two letters representing a single sound. Some of these digraphs correspond to sounds not represented by a single letter in the appropriate language.
En castellano se emplean cinco dígrafos: «ch», «ll», «rr», «gu» y «qu»,
In short it's the union of two letter of the alphabet.
Are many words with this letters:
Chorizo, chuleta, hacha, macho Lluvia, llave, llama, pollo, malla Carrera, correr, lavarropas, morral, marrón.
I hope this helps.
Regards.
Here's the Spanish alphabet I have learned: a ah, b bveh, c say, d deh, e eh, f eh-fay, g Heh, h ah-cheh, i ee, j Hoh-tah, k kah, l eh-lay, m eh-may, n eh-nay, ñ eh-nyeh, o oh, p pay, q coo, r eh-ray, s eh-say, t teh, u oo, v bveh, w doble-way or doble-oo, x eh-kees, y ee-gray-gah, z say-tah
As you can see, the letters are not called the same as in English, but there's no Ch. However, English uses "ch" as in chair and many other words. So does Spanish.
Good luck, dear! I hope a Mexican provides more help for you.