Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet is the most widespread writing system in the world. It refers to the letters written as Aa, Bb, Cc, and so on, as opposed to the Cyrillic alphabet or Chinese characters, etc.

The vowel sounds and consonant sounds do not necessarily coincide in all the languages that use the same letters, a continuous source of confusion for students learning English, for example.

Within Europe there are several variations of these basic letters, including Ññ in Spanish, Öö in Swedish, Çç in French, Ww in many languages, and so on.

Sounding out the letters of the alphabet
The articles named "Decoding the letter ..." help students to read aloud letters (such as explaining the usual pronunciation for ca-co-cu vs ce-ci-cy).

Decoding the letter A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Teaching/reviewing the alphabet
It is surprising how many advanced level students reach amazingly high levels of accuracy and fluency in their use of English but stumble when they have to spell something, including, unbelievably, their own names or those of their colleagues. One very successful way of presenting/reviewing the alphabet is eliciting them and putting them up on the board by associating sounds as follows:
 * /eɪ/ = a; h; j; k
 * /iː/ = b; c; d; e; g; p; t; v; z
 * /e/ = f; l; m; n; s; x; z
 * /aɪ/ = i; y
 * /əʊ/ = o
 * /uː/ = q; u; w
 * /ɑː/ = r


 * Some of these letters are homophones: b = be; c = see/sea; i = eye/I; p = pea; q = queue; r = are; t = tea; u = you; y = why


 * Don't forget we say “double-b” or “double-r”, etc. when we spell aloud, because these letters are just two of the many consonant letters (and some vowel letters, e.g. skiing) we can double in English: aardvark; bubble; accent; ladder; speed; stuff; luggage; skiing; trekking; pillow; summer; dinner; book; supper; mirror; passing; butter; savvy; buzzer;

Note: z is pronounced /zed/, or /ziː/;