The Classical Latin alphabet will look very familiar. It's the direct ancestor of the modern English alphabet, but with a few key differences. For starters, the classical version had only 23 letters. The letters 'J' and 'W' were not used, and 'U' and 'V' were just different forms of the same letter.

Latin has five vowels: A, E, I, O, U. Simple enough. The tricky part is that each vowel has two distinct pronunciations: a short sound and a long sound. In dictionaries and learning materials, a long vowel is often marked with a macron (a straight line) above it, like this: ā.

Getting the vowel length right is important because it can completely change the meaning of a word.

Unlike the beautiful mess of English pronunciation, Latin consonants are refreshingly consistent. A letter almost always makes the same sound, no matter what other letters are around it. This makes sounding out words much easier. Here are the most important ones to remember.

Every 'c' is hard, like a 'k'. There are no soft 'c' sounds as in 'cease'. Likewise, every 'g' is hard, as in 'gate', never soft as in 'gem'.

The letter 'I' did double duty. When it came before a vowel, it was treated as a consonant with a 'y' sound. At all other times, it was a regular vowel.

Let's put it together. The famous phrase "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered") wouldn't be pronounced 'Veeny, veedy, veechy'. In Classical Latin, it would sound like "WEN-ee, WEE-dee, WEE-kee."

Now, let's review these fundamental sounds.

Time to test your knowledge.

Mastering these sounds is the first major step toward reading and speaking Latin.