Grammer....need help with abc's

Hello, I am having a problem with learning how to pronounce the letters of the alphabet in spanish. I cannot find it in audio format. I feel that is the only way for me to begin to learn. Can anyone help me? Joanne

A bit cumbersome, but try this. Alan http://www.intro2spanish.com/pronunciation/alphabet.htm

In the Beginner's Book Audio Version, chapter 1.1, Mauricio goes through the full Spanish alphabet and you can follow along in the companion ebook.

There's also this: *__http://www.rocketlanguages.com/spanish/pronunciation_spanish_alphabet.php__*

The beginners book has corresponding MP3 files. The alphabets are pronounced out load by Maricio Also download the latest Adobe Reader (I believe v8.03). They made lots of improvements with regards to the imbedded audio in the converation book. Also cool copy to clipboard features.

I have just starting using the Rocket Spanish course and am really pleased with the amount of resources that come with it. I want to learn the language thoroughly for two reasons - my son's girlfriend is Spanish and her parents speak no English, as well as wanting to be able to converse reasonably easily when I visit Barcelona for a holiday in May. However, the pronunciation of this course is for Latin American Spanish. With basics such as the alphabet and numbers, there are quite a lot of things that are not pronounced the same way. Also, the request 'I would like' in the Rocket Spanish course is 'quiero', but Lorena tells me that it would be considered rude to say this in Spain - I should say 'quisiera'. How do I know where there are differences? I am really keen to make progress as fast as possible with the course, but feel a bit hampered by this problem. Thanks for any advice you can give!

Hola. Bienvenida al foro. There aren't really all that many differences between the way people pronounce Spanish in Spain and the way they do so in Latin America. The main ones are with the letters z and c In Latin America,* z* is pronounced just like an *s* (as in *send*), whereas in Spain, it's pronounced like the *th* in *thin*. In Latin America, when the letter c comes before an i or an e, it's pronounced like an s, whereas in Spain, it's pronounced like the th in thin. One other difference between the Spanish in Spain and that in Latin America is the use in Spain of "vosotros" when addressing more than one person informally (i.e., it's the plural equivalent of "tú"). The two programs I know best for learning Spanish--Rocket Spanish and Learning Spanish Like Crazy--focus on Latin American Spanish and thus ignore "vosotros." However, if you expect a lot of your conversation to be with people from Spain, you may want to make an effort to learn how to conjugate verbs with vosotros. As for "quiero," it really means "I want," and so it's more direct/abrupt than "quisiera," which means "I would like." Even in Latin America, if you're trying to be polite, you might be safer with "quisiera." In general, however, both in Spain and in Latin America, people tend to be increasingly informal. Also, as an obvious non-native speaker, you'll probably find that people will overlook things they wouldn't overlook from a native speaker. Finally, in addition to Rocket Spanish, you may want to listen to some Spanish spoken with the accent from Spain. I'd recommend the podcast *Notes in Spanish* at *__http://www.notesinspanish.com/__*. The podcasts and the forum are free; if you'd like transcripts of the podcasts that include some lessons and tips on usage, you can get those if you pay. ¡Buena suerte!

Have a great trip. Were you aware that the primary language spoken in Barcelona is Catalan? Sure, everyone will understand Spanish if you speak it to them, but when they are out and about they typically speak Catalan, not Spanish. Go to a place like Madrid for Spanish.