Occurrence of the Spanish phonemes in words

Even if you are unsure about the exact pronunciation of a Spanish word, you should be able to work out which phonemes it contains from the way it is spelled.

To that end, Table 1 below specifies, for each Spanish phoneme, which letter it corresponds to in which contexts.

Table 1 Phoneme–letter correspondence in Spanish
Phoneme	Letter or digraph	Example	Phoneme	Letter or digraph	Example
/a/	a	pata	/θ/	z; c (before i or e)	rezar vecino
/e/	e	llegar	/s/	s	beso
/i/	i; y (at the end of a word)	hilo rey	/ʝ/	y	ayer
/o/	o	pozo	/tʃ/	ch	mucho
/u/	u	cubo	/x/	j; g (before i or e)	paja rígido
/p/	p	copa	/m/	m	vamos
/t/	t	mente	/n/	n	lana
/k/	c; qu (before i or e)	rico saque	/ɲ/	ñ; n (before /ʝ/ or /ʎ/)	año cónyuge conllevar
/b/	b, v	cabeza vaca	/l/	l	pelo
/d/	d	dedo	/ʎ/	ll	callar
/g/	g; gu (before i or e)	miga guerra	/ɾ/	r	cara
/f/	f	foto	/r/	rr; r (at the beginning of a word or after /l/, /n/ or /s/)	perro rojo alrededor

The letter h is silent in all cases and so corresponds to no phoneme.

The letter x corresponds in principle to the sequence /ks/, as in [ˈeksito] éxito ‘success’. When this sequence forms a cluster with a following consonant, there is a tendency for /k/ to be weakened or elided, as in [estɾaŋˈxeɾo] ‘foreign’. This is a variable process, however, and [ekstɾaŋˈxeɾo] would also be possible, particularly in more careful speech.