One Letter, One Sound

Foundations

Each Guarani letter, or pair such as ch, stands for the same sound every time.

How It Works

Guarani spelling follows the sounds closely. Every letter in a word is read. These are the letters that differ most from English.

Letter	Sounds like	Word
ch	sh in share	che “I”
j	j in jay	jagua “dog”
h	h in hi	ha “and”
r	one quick tap, as in American butter	rire “after”
v	a soft v, with the teeth barely touching the lip	kavaju “horse”
g	a soft, relaxed g	óga “house”
p, t, k	as in spot, stain, school, with no puff of air	tatu “armadillo”

The vowels are pure. In English, the vowels in say and go glide toward i and u. In Guarani, e and o stay steady. Each vowel stays clear, even when it is not stressed.

Old books use other letters for some sounds, such as b for v and y for j. A few common words also have more than one modern spelling. See The Nasal G.

Examples (5)

che
I
The two characters ch are one letter, and it sounds like English sh.
jagua
dog
The j sounds like the j in jay.
óga
house
The g is soft and relaxed.
tatu
armadillo
The t has no puff of air, as in stain.
rire
after
Each r is one quick tap of the tongue.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

One Letter, One SoundFoundations

Learn This First

Spelling can only be regular once learners know what counts as one letter, so the alphabet comes first.

The Guarani Alphabet
Know the alphabet, since a letter such as mb or ch counts as one letter, and every letter keeps its one sound: jagua “dog”.
Foundations

Learn Next

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Poppy, your AI tutor, writes Guarani lessons at your level. Tap any grammar point in a lesson to see its full explanation.