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Spanish Audio Pronunciation Guide

Unlike English, Spanish pronunciation is always consistent, so once you know the rules you will always know how to pronounce and new Spanish word. The table below only shows the letters that are pronounced differently from the English, all other letters are the same as the English. Click on the examples to hear the Spanish pronunciation audio.

Letter	Pronunciation	Audio
a	As the a in father	el amigo
c	th when before e or i, like the c in cat all other times	cinco, comer
d	As the d in dog at the start of a word or following an l or n. Between d and th all other times	de, el pescado
e	As the e in bet	español
g	As the h in hat before e or i, the g in game all other times	inteligente, grande
h	silent	hoy
i	As the i in machine	inteligente
j	As an English h	la mujer
ll	As the y in beyond	llamar
ñ	As the ny in canyon	el niño
o	As the o in slope	primero, ahora
q	As the k in key	que
r	As an English r with a slight roll	el restaurante
rr	As r but with a full roll	cerrado
u	As oo in too	uno
v	As an English b	ver
z	As an English th	la cerveza

Word Stress

As with the letter pronunciation the word stress, or emphasis, always follows predictable rules. Accents (e.g. á) mark the stressed syllable if the stress is irregular. Note that ñ is a seperate letter in Spanish NOT an accent.

Stressed Syllable	When	Example
last	Words ending in a consonant	el hospital
last but one	Words ending in a vowel, -s or -n	el banco, el abrelatas, el examen
on the accent	Any words that have an accent (note - ñ is not a stress accent)	también