Spanish pronunciation: every sound, stress rule and common mistake, with audio

The Spanish alphabet in one minute

The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters: the 26 of English plus ñ. Almost every letter spells one fixed sound, so once you know the sounds below you can read any word aloud. Ch and ll stopped being separate letters in 2010; like rr, they are letter pairs.

Every letter's Spanish name (a, be, ce, de… hache, jota, eñe) with audio, plus how to spell words out loud, is on the Spanish alphabet page linked below.

The 5 Spanish vowels

American English has more than a dozen vowel sounds; Spanish has five, and each one is pronounced the same way in every word, stressed or not. They are shorter and tenser than English vowels, and they never slide into a second sound: Spanish "no" is a clean [no], not the "noh-w" of English "no".

Spanish consonants, letter by letter

Most Spanish consonants are close to English ones. The differences that matter are small but constant: p, t and k have no puff of air, t and d are made with the tongue against the teeth, b, d and g soften between vowels, and the r family works nothing like English r.

Word stress and the written accent

Every Spanish word with more than one syllable has one stressed syllable, and you can always tell which from the spelling. Two rules cover every word without an accent mark; the accent mark (á, é, í, ó, ú) marks every exception.

Rhythm and linking words together

Spanish is syllable-timed: every syllable takes roughly the same time, and unstressed vowels keep their full quality. English squeezes unstressed syllables ("chocolate" is "CHOK-lit"); Spanish says all four: cho-co-la-te.

Words also run together. A final consonant joins the vowel that starts the next word, and two vowels that meet across words merge into one syllable. "Los otros" is said lo-so-tros; "mi amigo" is mya-mi-go. That is why spoken Spanish sounds fast — the words are not said one by one.

The 8 mistakes English speakers make in Spanish

1. 1

   Turning unstressed vowels into "uh"

   English reduces unstressed vowels to a schwa. In Spanish every vowel keeps its sound: "chocolate" has four clear vowels, and "Pamela" keeps its a, e and a instead of becoming "PAM-uh-luh".

   chocolateimportante
2. 2

   Gliding the vowels

   English e and o end in a y or w glide ("day", "go-w"). Spanish e and o stop clean. "De" is not "day", and "no" is not "know".

   denopeso
3. 3

   Adding a puff of air to p, t and k

   English p, t, k at the start of a word are aspirated. Spanish ones are not. Hold your hand in front of your mouth: "pan" should barely move the air.

   pantacocasa
4. 4

   Using the English r

   The English r bunches the tongue back. Spanish r is a tap at the front of the mouth — the flap you already make in "butter" — and rr is a trill. pero (but) and perro (dog) are different words.

   peroperrotres
5. 5

   Hard b, d and g between vowels

   Between vowels, these soften. "Nada" with an English d sounds stilted; with a soft [ð] it sounds native. Same for b in "cabeza" and g in "lago".

   nadacabezalago
6. 6

   Pronouncing the h

   Spanish h is silent: hola is "OH-la", hotel is "o-TEL", ahora is "a-O-ra".

   holahotelahora
7. 7

   Saying z for s

   English voices s between vowels ("president", "rose"). Spanish keeps a hissed s: presidente, casa, museo.

   presidentemuseo
8. 8

   Stressing cognates the English way

   Words that look English keep Spanish stress: animal is a-ni-MAL, doctor is doc-TOR, hospital is hos-pi-TAL, and Canadá is ca-na-DÁ.

   animaldoctorhospital

Minimal pairs: words that differ by one sound

These pairs differ in a single sound or in stress — and in meaning. Listen to both, then say them. If you can hear and produce the difference, that part of your Spanish is solid.

A note on the score: the recorder scores each sound against the word you were asked to say, so a weak r shows up as a low score on that sound — but it cannot tell you whether you tapped or trilled. Use the audio for that contrast.

Latin American vs. Spain pronunciation

Every region sounds different, but the core system above is shared. Pick one model (most US learners use Latin American Spanish) and stay consistent; native speakers understand both everywhere.

The recorder above accepts both: c and z said as s or as th are scored as correct, and so is ll said as y.