Spanish pronunciation of the letter G

So, if you're learning Spanish one of the things that may trip you up is pronunciation, and today I'm going to talk about the letter G since this catches out quite a few of the people who visit Ronda.

Not too far away from Ronda we have a few cities with a G in the name, Fuengirola, Málaga, Gibraltar, Granada, Algodonales, Algeciras, and let's not forget Grazalema. In Ronda we have a palace that many people visit, the Casa del Gigante.

So, the letter G can be said two ways in Spanish, like the English G for example ground, or it can be said like the English H but with more emphasis that makes it sound like a kettle boiling.

Any Spanish word that has a G followed by an I or an E is pronounced this way, so Fuengirola or Algeciras, in both the G sounds a bit guttural and more like an H.

The words Granada, Algodonales, and Málaga sound exactly the way we pronounce them in English with a hard G, just like in ground, goat, or Gatsby.

The only word amongst that list above that can be difficult is gigante which starts with the hard H sound but finishes like our normal G. Have fun!