Of course there are. What I mean is that each letter is only pronounced one way. For example, in English the "o" in "woman" and "women" sounds different, with

Of course there are. What I mean is that each letter is only pronounced one way. For example, in English the "o" in "woman" and "women" sounds different, with exactly the same syllabic structure. However in Spanish, every time you write the "o" it is pronounced the same as every other "o". In some accents/dialects some letters will have slightly different pronunciations or intonations (e.g. c turns into s, or s at the end of a word will turn silent), but within that accent, most sounds will remain stably linked to a letter. EDIT: Of course, I am not a linguist and I'm sure every word of my example can be debunked a million ways; but this is the experience of the language for a native Spain Spanish speaker.