"Z"

I never thought the letter "z" was capable of causing me such frustration until just now in my third grade English class. Even though the children have been in English classes for two years they are still rusty with their abecedario so today we were going over it and I was teaching them the "abc" song.

As I have said before British English is taught in the schools in Spain. Seeing that its March I feel pretty confident that I now know the major differences in vocabulary/grammar between American and British English. Such as "rubber" instead of "eraser, "have you got" instead of " do you have" etc.

HOWEVER today something VERY weird happened during the "abcs." I was getting down to the end when all the children started yelling that its "zed" not "zee." The teachers confirmed that they learn "zed" on the English CDs that accompany the textbooks. Um.... I didnt really know what to say. I had never heard "z" pronunced like this. At first I freaked out that I´m almost 23 years old and maybe never learned the alphabet properly, so I ran down to the teachers´s lounge and did a google search, but apparently it´s one of those things that makes our English different from "proper English." The teacher explained to the children that just how some words are pronunced differently in Latin America, some words are different in the US than they are in the UK.

Needless to say I think "zed" sounds dumb and as I was almost out the door a child asked me to repeat how I say "z" again and I said, "ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" and that if he ever expected to make it in the US he better remember that.