How to Pronounce the English Alphabet: The Letter Names Learners Confuse

Spelling your name or reference number aloud should be the easiest thing in English. It often is not, because English letter names do not match the letter names of most other languages that use the Latin alphabet. An Italian, Spanish or Portuguese speaker who says the letter E the way they would at home will be heard as saying A. A French speaker may swap G and J.

The trick is to stop thinking of the alphabet as a sequence and to learn it as groups of letters that rhyme. English letter names fall into seven sound groups.

The alphabet in rhyming groups

Seen this way, the alphabet is much less chaotic. The largest group, the /iː/ letters, is also the most confusing on the phone, which is why spelling alphabets exist (see below).

A, E and I: the biggest trap

In Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and German, the vowel letters are named with their own sound: A is /a/, E is /e/, I is /i/. In English, the names come from a historical vowel shift and are completely different:

The practical consequence: if you spell "Pedro" as P-E-D-R-O using Spanish letter names, an English listener will write P-A-D-R-O, because your E sounds like their A. And your I will be heard as E. This single issue causes more spelling errors on the phone than all the other letters combined.

G and J

In English, G is /dʒiː/ (rhymes with see) and J is /dʒeɪ/ (rhymes with day). In French, the names are roughly reversed: G is /ʒe/ and J is /ʒi/. Portuguese speakers face a similar problem, since G is /ʒe/. A useful memory aid: J belongs with its neighbour K, since both rhyme with day, while G belongs with the large group of letters that rhyme with see.

Letters with more than one name

• Z: zed /zed/ in British, Irish, Australian, Canadian, Indian and most other Englishes; zee /ziː/ in American English. Both are universally understood.
• H: aitch /eɪtʃ/ is standard. Haitch /heɪtʃ/ is normal in Irish English and increasingly common in Australia and among younger British speakers. Some people still consider it incorrect.
• W: double-u, three syllables. In casual American speech it is often shortened to "dub-ya".
• R: /ɑː/ in non-rhotic accents, /ɑr/ in American. Learners sometimes add a vowel, "ar-e", as in their language's name for the letter.
• Y: wye /waɪ/, identical to the word why.

Spelling on the phone

Because B, C, D, E, G, P, T and V all rhyme, and M/N and F/S are easily confused, native speakers add a word for any letter that might be misheard. You can use any common word ("T for Tom") or the international spelling alphabet:

Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.

Other conventions: say "double" for repeated letters ("double S"), "capital" for upper case, and pause briefly between groups of three or four letters. There is more on this in our guide to saying email addresses and symbols.

Practice

1. Say the seven groups from the table above as chants: "A, H, J, K", "B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V".
2. Spell these names aloud, recording yourself: Giovanni, Jeanette, Ahmed, Yuki, Xavier, Quentin.
3. Listen back and check the letters that most often cause trouble: E, I, G, J, A, R and Y.
4. Spell your own full name and email address three times, using "as in" words for any letter from the /iː/ group.

Frequently asked questions

Is Z pronounced zed or zee?

Zee in American English, zed in British English and most other varieties. Both are understood everywhere, so use whichever matches the accent you speak.

Why does the English letter E sound like I in other languages?

Because of the Great Vowel Shift, a change in English pronunciation between about 1400 and 1700. The long vowels moved, and the letter names moved with them, while most other European languages kept the older values.

Is haitch or aitch correct?

Aitch is the traditional standard. Haitch is normal in Irish English and increasingly common elsewhere, but some listeners still regard it as non-standard.

Sources and further reading

• Wells, J. C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Pearson Longman.
• Crystal, D. (2019). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• International Civil Aviation Organization. Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Volume II.

Read More in This Topic

• How to Say Email Addresses, Website Addresses and Symbols in English
• Stop guessing: how to spell and pronounce any English word correctly
• English Diphthongs: How to Pronounce the Gliding Vowels

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