Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "barato" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce barato in Spanish?

barato is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /baˈɾa.to/. It means “cheap.” bah-RAH-toh, three beats with the stress in the middle and one tapped r.

bah-RAH-toh, three beats with the stress in the middle and one tapped r.

barato /baˈɾa.to/

Three syllables — ba-RA-to — with the stress on the second-to-last, straight from the default rule. All four forms keep the same placement. The related noun "baratija" (a trinket) moves the beat to TI, again second-to-last, which shows how consistently the rule applies once you stop looking for exceptions.

Listen: barato

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

ba A b with the lips meeting gently, then a wide-open "ah". Unstressed, but the vowel stays wide.

ra A single tap of the tongue tip — one flick, not a roll, since the r sits between vowels — plus a second wide "ah" carrying the stress.

to A dental t with no puff of air and a pure "oh". Do not let American English flap this t into a d.

Hear it in a sentence

Ese restaurante es barato.

That restaurant is cheap.

Listen: Ese restaurante es barato.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Ese restaurante es barato" uses ser, treating the price level as a characteristic of the place. "Restaurante" is four beats, res-tau-RAN-te, with the au gliding into one syllable and the final e fully pronounced — exactly the ending English wants to drop. Two words in the sentence end in that same short "eh".

Where English speakers slip

The r invites an English curl, which turns the middle syllable into something like "RAH" with the tongue pulled back. It is a single forward flick. Both a vowels then need to stay wide open, where English would give the first a schwa. And the t must not be flapped — "ba-RAH-doh" is the American reflex and it is audibly wrong.