How to Pronounce 'Adiós': Spanish Pronunciation Guide

Q: How do you pronounce adiós in Spanish?

adiós is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /aˈðjos/. It means “goodbye.” ah-DYOHS in two beats, with a soft th-like d and the accent forcing the stress onto the end.

How do you pronounce "adiós" in Spanish?

ah-DYOHS in two beats, with a soft th-like d and the accent forcing the stress onto the end.

adiós /aˈðjos/

Two syllables, a-DIÓS. Because the word ends in s, the default rule would place the beat on the second-to-last syllable and give "A-dios". The written accent overrides that and pins the stress to the final syllable. This is one of those words where the mark is genuinely load-bearing — remove it and the pronunciation changes.

Listen: adiós

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Sound it out

a An open "ah" as in "father", unstressed but never reduced. This is a full vowel, not the shrunk "uh" English puts at the start of "about".

di Between vowels the d goes soft: the tongue brushes the back of the upper teeth without stopping the air, landing close to the th of "this". The i then glides into the o, so this is "dyoh", one beat, not "dee-oh".

ós A pure "oh" carrying the stress, closed by a hissing s. Keep the s voiceless — a final "oz" buzz is an English import.

Hear it in a sentence

Adiós, hasta mañana.

Goodbye, see you tomorrow.

Listen: Adiós, hasta mañana.

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"Adiós, hasta mañana" pairs the goodbye with "hasta", whose h is silent just as it is in "hola" — so it is AHS-ta with the word starting on the vowel. "Mañana" gives you the ñ: one single palatal sound made with the middle of the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth, not an n followed by a separate y.

Where English speakers slip

Three syllables is the most common wrong version — "ah-dee-OHS" — because English reads "io" as two vowels. Spanish fuses them into a single gliding beat. The second issue is the d, which English speakers make hard and plosive; here it sits between vowels and should be so soft that it nearly turns into a th. And beware of stressing the first syllable out of politeness-formula instinct: the accent mark says the end of the word is where the weight goes.