Changes to official international guidelines for the Spanish language mean foreigners may now find it a little easier to learn.

The new standards, which include shortening the Spanish alphabet by 2 letters, were recently approved by Spain's Royal Academy and 21 other language academies from the Spanish-speaking world.

Previously, "ch" and "ll" - pronounced roughly as "che" and "eh-yay" - were considered separate letters in the Spanish alphabet, but now they have been removed.