The next few comparisons of the Portuguese and Spanish alphabets range from H to L.

The first of these “H” is pronounced completely differently in each of these languages with the Spanish pronunciation being the closest to English. Spanish “H” therefore is pronounced “ah-cheh” using the same “ch” sound as the English pronunciation of the final “ch” sound in the letter “H”. Meanwhile, in Portuguese, the pronunciation is much harder, this letter being pronounced as “ah-gah” with a hard “g”.

“I” is pronounced exactly the same way in both languages, namely as “ee” but the next difference lies in the next letter of the alphabet. A similarity is to be found in the final syllable of this pronunciation although the sound of the first syllable in Portuguese is closer to that of the English pronunciation of this word. Spanish pronounces “J” with the guttural “ch” (like the Scottish “loch”) in the first syllable and is expressed as “jota”, therefore, “chawtah”. The Portuguese is “like the English “J” as in the name Jake but softer like the French Jean, and is therefore pronounced “zhawtah”.

The letter “K” is pronounced only one way in Spanish but has 2 pronunciations is Portuguese. The former is pronounced “ka” similarly to the English “k” sound whereas the latter is pronounced either exactly the same way as “ka” or very often as “kappa”.

Finally, and to the Anglophone’s relief, “L” is pronounced in Portuguese as it would be in English, simply as “el”. The Spanish pronunciation is similar to other pronunciations of the Spanish alphabet, namely by adding an “eh” to the end. Spanish “L” is then pronounced “eleh”.

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This new mini-series of articles will deal with distinctions in the pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet between the Spanish and Portuguese languages.

It’s not only words spelt the same way in Spanish and Portuguese but with different meanings that can cause confusion for learners of these languages, the pronunciation varies significantly in over half of the letters of the alphabet.

The Spanish letter “C” has two sounds depending on where you are from. Either a soft “ss” sound if you’re southern Spanish, from the Canary Islands or Latin America. Throughout most of Spain, it has a “th” sound, a soft sound like that in the English “with” rather than a harder sound as in “the”. In Portuguese, the letter “C” is soft. In both languages it is pronounced “say” or “seh”, or alternatively, with the “th” sound.

The first five letters of both languages’ alphabets are pronounced in pretty much the same way: ah, beh, seh, deh, eh. We come to “F” and Portuguese is the same as English whereas Spanish pronounces this letter “efeh”.

The next letter has a completely different sound in both languages however. This is where the almost guttural sound of Spanish is first heard in this language. “G” is pronounced as a guttural/aspirate “hay” or “geh” much like the Scottish “ch” in “loch”. Portuguese pronunciation of this letter is a much harder sound and is pronounced as “gay” or “geh”. A distinguishing feature of the Portuguese “G” is that when it is pronounced in an acronym, for example, when referring to the Portuguese GNR, or “Guarda Nacional Republicana”, almost equivalent to the regular police patrol officers of the UK, “G” is pronounced more softly as in “George”.

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