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 The
Spanish alphabet is similar to most other western European
languages. To learn how to write in Spanish you need
to know Spanish contains 29 letters: a; b; c; ch; d;
e; f, g; h; i; j; k; l; ll; m; n; ñ; o; p; q;
r; s; t; u; v; w; x; y and z. They are pronounced as
follows: a; be; ce; che; de; e; efe; ge; hache; i; jota;
ka; ele; elle; eme; ene; eñe; o; pe; qu; erre;
ese; te; u; ve; uve doble; equis; i griega and zeta.
You will find three new letters (ch; ñ and ll),
but the rest is the same as in English.
Some books miss ch and spell a word
using c and h in a separately way. To make a difference
between b and v, Spanish speakers use colorful expressions
(b as in burro; v as in vaca), or they simple call them
“long b/ big b” and “short v/ little
v”. All the letters of the alphabet are feminine
(la a, la b, la c, etc.). Spanish vowels are often written
with accents (cajón).
The easiest way on how to write in
Spanish with accents and punctuation is with your computer
and to install software that configures your keyboard
with an international character set. For example, if
you are using Windows XP, you have to open Main Start
Menu and click on Control Panel. Then, choose the Regional
and Language Options icon and select the Languages tab.
After that, click on Details and then, press Add. You
will get a pull-down menu if you click on United States-International
option; select it as the default language. Click Ok
to end the installation and to exit the menu system.
If you are using Vista, the method is very similar.
Choose Change Keyboard or Other Input Method and select
General Tab. Click Add and highlight United States-
International. Then, continue as with XP.
An alternative for quick writers is
to use “right-Alt” method. If you press
Alt key and the right vowel key simultaneously, you
will have it accented. In case you need to add an accent
to a capital letter, for example Á, you need
to press three keys at the same time: A; right-Alt and
Shift. The same method can be used to write ñ
(press n and right-Alt key simultaneously).
Punctuation in Spanish is very similar
to the English way, but we have to point out three important
differences. The inverted question mark (¿) and
inverted exclamation point (¡) —press question
mark/exclamation point and right-Alt key at the same
time to get them— are used at the beginning of
questions and exclamations. They can also appear in
the middle of a sentence as a clause (—Te gustó
la película, ¿no?; “You liked the
film, didn’t you?”). As you may notice in
this example, a dash is used to introduce somebody’s
expression in a dialogue, instead of quotation marks.
The last tips on how to write in Spanish are about
writing numbers. Comma and period are used in an inverted
way. If you need to write 12,345.50 in Spanish, you
will have to change signs: 12.345,50. Besides, the most
common pattern used to write dates in Spanish is: 10
de diciembre de 2008 (December 10, 2008). Months and
days of the week are written with lower-case letters.
You should also pay attention to the number expression
of the date because in Spanish they use the form: day/month/year
(10/12/08) instead of month/day/year of the English
way (12/10/08).
Never use ordinal numbers to refer to the date (segundo
de abril) because it’s wrong. Spanish speakers
only use it for the first day of the month (primero
de mayo). To identify a year before the Christian period,
they use a.C. after the number (1024 a.C.) and if there
is a date after this period mentioned in the same text,
they add d.C. after the number (1345 d.C.). As in the
English way, when dates only refer to our era, no aggregation
is necessary. This is just the beginning on how to write
in Spanish but it’s an excellent start.
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