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Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "difícil" in Spanish?
dee-FEE-seel, with the accent holding the stress on the middle syllable.
Three syllables, di-FÍ-cil, and the accent is doing real work. The word ends in l, so the default rule would stress the last syllable and give "di-fi-CIL". The mark drags the beat back to the middle. Its plural "difíciles" keeps the accent even though the s ending would already suggest a second-to-last beat — the mark is needed to hold it one syllable further back.
Listen: difícil
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Hear it in a sentence
Esta palabra es difícil.
This word is difficult.
Listen: Esta palabra es difícil.
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"Esta palabra es difícil" gives you a nice contrast in accent behaviour: "palabra" needs none, because ending in a vowel puts the beat on LA by default, while "difícil" needs one to override its l ending. Both are three syllables; only one is marked. Note also that "difícil" has a single form for both genders.
Where English speakers slip
The English cognate "difficult" pulls the stress to the front, producing "DI-fi-cil", and the three i vowels get differentiated the way English would. All three are the same tight "ee", and the beat sits squarely in the middle where the accent says. The c before i is also an s, not a k — "di-FEE-kil" is a common misreading.