There are 27 letters in the modern Spanish alphabet. Yeah, you read right, 27. There's an extra letter in Spanish that we don't use in English. It's the letter "ñ," and we'll tell you more about it later. There used to be a few letters in the Spanish alphabet that were never in the English alphabet. These letters are now combinations of letters that, until recently, were considered letters in their own right. Although they are no longer technically listed with the alphabet, they still show up in a lot of Spanish words, so learn to pronounce them. For simplicity's sake, we'll refer to them here as single letters. Two of the most common combinations are "ch" and "ll". "Ch" is pronounced just like in the English words "chortle" and "chuckle." "Ll" is pronounced like a "y" in English. Pronunciation Spanish is an easy language to pronounce. Each letter usually corresponds to only one sound. Once you learn how to pronounce each letter, you'll have Spanish pronunciation pretty much licked. It's really much easier than English, where vowels and some consonants can make several possible sounds. For example, there are a number of ways you can pronounce the vowel "a" in English. In Spanish, the vowel "a" has only one flat sound—ah—like in the name María. It works the same way for the other vowels in Spanish. There's only one way to pronounce each of them. Here's how to pronounce the rest of the vowels in Spanish. Make sure you close your mouth quickly without drawing out the vowel sound like you do in English. "E" is pronounced like a long "a" in English. Examples: la cena, un eructo. "I" is pronounced like a long "e" in English. Examples: el cine, una idiota. "O" is pronounced like a long "o" in English. Examples: un ojo, un ojo morado. "U" is pronounced sort of like two o's together in English. Examples: una trucha, una trucha estúpida, un eructo.