Symbols
106Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Spanish alphabet: A to M
Accented vowels sit next to their base letter; in Spanish they are the same letter with a stress mark.
Spanish alphabet: N to Z
Ñ is a letter of its own, alphabetised after N. Ü appears only in güe and güi.
Spanish punctuation and marks
Currency in Spanish-speaking countries
Where Spanish is spoken
Countries where Spanish is an official language, largest Spanish-speaking population first in each row.
On the map
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The Spanish alphabet: 27 letters, one of them Ñ
The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters: the 26 of English plus Ñ ñ, which comes right after N in every dictionary, so ñandú follows nutria. The Real Academia Española (RAE) and the other academies of the Spanish language name them a, be, ce, de, e, efe, ge, hache, i, jota, ka, ele, eme, ene, eñe, o, pe, cu, erre, ese, te, u, uve, uve doble, equis, ye and zeta.
Ch, ll and rr are digraphs: two letters for one sound, as in chico, llave and perro. Older dictionaries filed ch and ll as separate letters; the academies stopped alphabetising them separately in 1994 and removed them from the alphabet in 2010. That is why older textbooks list 29 or 30 letters.
The accented vowels á é í ó ú and ü are not separate letters. They are the plain vowels with a mark, and they sort with them. Only ñ counts as a letter of its own.
Spanish accent marks: what á é í ó ú, ñ and ü do
The acute accent, which Spanish calls the tilde, marks the stressed syllable when it breaks the default rule. Words ending in a vowel, n or s are stressed on the second-to-last syllable (casa, hablan); all others on the last (hablar, reloj). So canción, café and árbol need the mark, and every word stressed further back always takes it: música, teléfono, rápidamente.
The same mark also tells apart words spelled alike: tú (you) and tu (your), él (he) and el (the), sí (yes) and si (if), más (more) and mas (but), sé (I know) and se, té (tea) and te. Question words carry it too: qué, cómo, dónde, cuándo, quién, cuál, cuánto, also inside a sentence (no sé dónde está). Capital letters keep their accents: ÁFRICA, Ángel, ÉXITO.
Ñ is the sound of ny in canyon, a word English took from Spanish cañón. Leaving it out changes the word: año is a year, ano is the anus, so "feliz año" needs its ñ. You meet it in España, niño, mañana, cumpleaños and in the name of the language itself, español. In Mexico a birthday often begins with Las Mañanitas, the song sung to wake the person on the morning of their day.
Ü, the diéresis, appears only in güe and güi. Normally the u after g is silent (guerra, guitarra); the two dots make it heard: pingüino, vergüenza, cigüeña, lingüística.
Spanish punctuation: ¿ ¡ « » and the dialogue dash
Spanish opens every question with ¿ and every exclamation with ¡, and closes them with the usual ? and !. The opening mark goes where the question starts, which can be mid-sentence: Si llegas tarde, ¿me llamas? Both marks can combine for a question said in surprise: ¿¡Qué dices!?
For quotations the RAE recommends angle quotes « » first, then “ ” inside them, then ‘ ’: «Me dijo: “No sé qué es ‘tilde’”». Books and newspapers in Spain use « » widely; in Latin America “ ” is also common in everyday writing.
Novels write dialogue with the long dash — (raya) rather than quotation marks: —¿Vienes? —preguntó Ana. Ordinals use the small raised º and ª: 1.º (primero), 2.ª (segunda), n.º (número).
How to type Spanish accents on a keyboard
Windows: hold Alt and type the code on the number pad: á 0225, é 0233, í 0237, ó 0243, ú 0250, ñ 0241, Ñ 0209, ü 0252, ¿ 0191, ¡ 0161, « 0171, » 0187. Capitals: Á 0193, É 0201, Í 0205, Ó 0211, Ú 0218, Ü 0220. On a laptop without a number pad, switch to the United States-International layout: type ' then a vowel for á é í ó ú, then n for ñ, " then u for ü, and Right Alt 1 for ¡, Right Alt / for ¿. In Microsoft Word, Ctrl ' then a vowel gives the accent and Ctrl Shift then n gives ñ.
Mac: hold a vowel or n and choose from the menu that pops up, or use dead keys: Option E then a vowel for á é í ó ú, Option N then n for ñ, Option U then u for ü, Option 1 for ¡, Option Shift / for ¿, Option \ and Option Shift \ for « and ».
Phones: long-press n for ñ, a vowel for á é í ó ú ü, ? for ¿ and ! for ¡, or add a Spanish keyboard, which has an ñ key and suggests accents as you type. HTML: á é í ó ú ñ ü ¿ ¡. The keyboards sold in Spain and Latin America have their own ñ key.
Where Spanish is spoken, and its currency signs
CLDR estimates around 500 million Spanish speakers. Spanish is an official language in 19 countries and in Puerto Rico; it is de facto official in Mexico. Mexico has the most speakers by far, around 110 million in CLDR's estimate, followed by Argentina, Spain and Colombia with roughly 46 to 47 million each; the United States has a Spanish-speaking community of over 30 million by the same source. Each country has its own collection of flag, emoji and symbols, among them Mexico , Spain , Argentina and Colombia .
Prices in most of Latin America are written with , which there means pesos (Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay) or US dollars (Ecuador, El Salvador, Puerto Rico). Spain writes the euro after the number, 20 , and before the euro used the peseta, . Costa Rica's colón has and Paraguay's guaraní ; Peru's sol (S/), Guatemala's quetzal (Q) and Venezuela's bolívar (Bs.) are written with ordinary letters.
Spanish is a Romance language, closely related to Portuguese, Catalan, Italian and French. Portuguese shares the acute accent and also uses ã, õ, ç and â; Spanish ñ often corresponds to Portuguese nh in cognates, as in montaña and montanha. See the Portuguese collection for its letters.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copySpanish Accent Marks & Letters combos
14Worth knowing
- The tilde on ñ began as a scribe's shortcut: medieval copyists wrote a small mark over a letter to save writing a second n, so Latin annus became año.
- The upside-down ¿ and ¡ were recommended by the Spanish Royal Academy in 1754; before that Spanish wrote questions with a closing mark only, like English. No other major language uses them.
- English took canyon from Spanish cañón and spelled the ñ as ny, which is exactly how it sounds.
- Since 2010 the academies prefer “ye” to the traditional and still widely used “i griega” for y; “uve” is the recommended name for v, though regional names still vary.
Questions people ask
8How do I copy and paste Spanish accents?
Click or tap any letter on this page (á é í ó ú ñ ü, or the capitals Á É Í Ó Ú Ñ Ü) to copy it, then paste with CtrlV, CmdV, or a long-press and Paste on a phone.
How do I type ñ on a laptop?
On Windows hold Alt and type 0241 (Ñ is 0209) on a number pad; without one, switch to the United States-International layout and type then n, or Right Alt n. On a Mac press Option N, then n, or hold the n key and pick ñ.
What are the alt codes for Spanish letters?
á 0225, é 0233, í 0237, ó 0243, ú 0250, ñ 0241, ü 0252; Á 0193, É 0201, Í 0205, Ó 0211, Ú 0218, Ñ 0209, Ü 0220; ¿ 0191, ¡ 0161. Hold Alt and type the four digits on the number pad.
What are the Spanish accent marks called?
The acute accent on á é í ó ú is the tilde (or acento ortográfico), the two dots on ü are the diéresis (also crema), and the wavy line on ñ is also called a tilde or virgulilla; tilde does not refer to the diéresis.
How many letters are in the Spanish alphabet?
27: the 26 letters of English plus ñ. Ch and ll were counted as letters in older books but were removed from the alphabet in 2010; accented vowels are not separate letters.
How do I type the upside down question mark in Spanish?
Alt 0191 on Windows, Option Shift / on a Mac, Right Alt / on the US-International layout, or long-press ? on a phone. The exclamation mark ¡ is Alt 0161 or Option 1.
Do capital letters need accents in Spanish?
Yes. The RAE requires the accent on capitals too: ÁNGEL, Óscar, PERÚ. Old typewriters made it hard to type, which is where the myth that capitals drop their accents comes from.
Why does Spanish use ¿ and ¡ at the start?
Because Spanish questions often have the same word order as statements (¿Tienes hambre? / Tienes hambre.), so the opening mark tells the reader from the first word how to read the sentence.
