How to write and pronounce the letters C, K, Z, S, X, Qu and Ch in Spanish

Spanish Route episode TEN. Your guided route to Spanish.

Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. Welcome to SpanishRoute. The program, the podcast, to learn and improve your Spanish.

My name is Sergio and I am your personal Spanish trainer. And I speak to you from Spain.

This is the tenth program, your tenth stage on your way to Spanish.

Today we continue with the series of programs on the pronunciation and use of the letters of the Spanish alphabet. In the previous program we talked about the letters G and J, and in this program we will learn to use and differentiate the letters C, K, Z, S, X and also the digraphs Qu and Ch.

The sounds or phonemes for which we are going to use these letters are: the phoneme / θ / (zzz), the phoneme / s / (ssss), the phoneme / k / and the phoneme / tʃ / (ch).

But as always, I recommend you to follow the class through the transcription and the text you will find on my website: spanishroute.com, since we are focusing on the written form of Spanish. It is advisable to read the words to differentiate when each of these letters is used.

On the web you can also expose your doubts and if you wish to book private sessions by Skype, to improve your pronunciation.

Remember: spanishroute.com. And now, yes, let's start with the class.

As some of the letters we are talking about today can represent several different phonemes, let's start by differentiating these phonemes and indicating when each letter should be used. And finally we will see how to pronounce the letter X in Spanish.

pronunciation ce, z qu, k

The phoneme / K / in Spanish

The sound or phoneme / k / can be represented in Spanish written by the letters K, Q / q, and C. In words such as house (which is written with c-), kilo (which is written with k-) or cheese (which is written with q-).

The letter k of the Spanish alphabet

The letter K is always used in Spanish to represent the sound / k /. But the words with this letter are unusual in Spanish. It only appears in some words of Greek or foreign origin: It can be accompanied by any vowel: ka, ke, ki, ko, ku.

kilo, Kilómetro, kamikace, vikingo  (kilo, kilometer, kamikaze, vikingo).

The letter Q/q and the digraph Qu / qu in Spanish

The letter Q/q of the Spanish alphabet is always used for this phoneme /k/, but only accompanying the vowel -e and the vowel -i. So it can only represent the sound -que- and the sound -qui-. In addition, the letter Q / q is always written accompanied by the silent vowel -u (without sound) forming the digraph Qu / qu: For example:

Queso, quince, quinientos, alquilar, quemar, quieto. (Cheese, fifteen, five hundred, rent, burn, quiet).

The letter C of the Spanish alphabet. When does it represent the phoneme / k /?

The letter C of the Spanish alphabet is used to represent the sound / k / when it accompanies the vowel -a: Casa (house); to the vowel -o: Coche (car); and the vowel -u: Cuadrado (square). When the letter C is followed by the vowel -e or the vowel -i, it is read with another sound, with the sound / θ / (zzz), forming the syllables -ce, -ci. As discussed below.

The letter C is also used to represent the sound / K / to end words: bloc, clic, bistec (bloc, click, steak).

And when it is followed by the consonant -l and by the consonant -r:

Clase, crisis, cruel, crema, cliente, cristal (Class, crisis, cruel, cream, customer, crystal).

The phoneme / θ / (zzz) and the seseo in Spanish

The sound or phoneme / θ / (zzz) can be represented in Spanish by the letters Z and C, but there are Spanish-speaking regions that do not have this phoneme and what they use instead is the phoneme / S / (sss). It is what is known as "seseo". Words like Zapato (Shoe) or Cereza (cherry). With "seseo" they are pronounced Zapato *, Cererza * (* Observe the pronunciation in the audio)

The "seseo", as we saw in chapter four of the podcast, is a particularity of the regional pronunciation of Spanish, admitted as correct. It occurs throughout Spanish-speaking America and in regions of Spain such as Andalusia and the Canary Islands. It consists of changing the phoneme / θ / (zzz) by the phoneme / S / (sss).

It should not be confused with the words that are written with the letter S and that are also pronounced with the sound / S / (sss).

This is complicated at first, since it can cause spelling errors when writing with S words that really should be written with C or with Z.

Although both forms of pronunciation are correct, we recommend that Spanish students learn and practice pronunciation without "seseo" to avoid making mistakes in written Spanish. But if you speak frequently with native Spaniards who pronounce with "seseo" it is correct that you also speak with seseo and it is normal that their way of speaking is contagious.

Therefore the phoneme / θ / (zzz) (or / S / (sss) when there is seseo), can be written with Z or with C as follows:

The letter Z of the Spanish alphabet

The letter Z of Spanish is always used to represent the phoneme / θ / (zzz) (or / S / (sss) when there is seseo) and can appear with any vowel: za, ze, zi, zo, zu, but the Z with the vowel -e and the Z with the vowel -i is very rarely used in Spanish.

With the vowel -a: Zapato (Shoe), abrazar (hug). With seseo: Zapato, abrazar (* is written with z even if pronounced with s)

With the vowel -e: zeta. With seseo: zeta (* is written with z although pronounced with s</st