LingoDrop
Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "el café" in Spanish?
el kah-FEH — the accent puts the stress on the last syllable, unlike English CAF-fee.
Two syllables, ca-FÉ, and the accent is load-bearing. The word ends in a vowel, so the default rule would give "CA-fe". The mark moves the beat to the end. The plural "cafés" keeps the accent, since the s ending would otherwise pull the stress back one syllable.
Listen: el café
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Tomo café por la mañana.
I drink coffee in the morning.
Listen: Tomo café por la mañana.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
"Tomo café por la mañana" drops the article before "café", which Spanish does for habitual statements about food and drink. "Tomar" is the natural verb for drinking coffee, more common than "beber". And "por la mañana" specifies a recurring time of day.
Where English speakers slip
English has borrowed this word twice — as "coffee" and as "café" — and both borrowings mislead. "Coffee" puts the stress at the front; "café" gives the final vowel an "ay" glide. Spanish wants the beat at the end and a short flat "eh". The word also means the place as well as the drink, which is convenient but occasionally ambiguous.