LingoDrop
Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "el mercado" in Spanish?
el mer-KAH-thoh, three beats with a tapped r and a soft d.
mer-CA-do: three syllables, and the second-to-last carries the beat, the placement the default rule gives. The plural "mercados" keeps it. The related verb "mercadear" adds a hiatus at the end and moves the stress to the final syllable, which shows how far the rhythm can shift within one word family.
Listen: el mercado
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
El mercado abre los sábados.
The market opens on Saturdays.
Listen: El mercado abre los sábados.
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
"El mercado abre los sábados" uses "los sábados" for every Saturday, with the plural article doing the work of English on. "Sábados" carries an accent pulling the beat three syllables from the end, and "mercado abre" links across the o into the a.
Where English speakers slip
Two consonants give way together: the r picks up an English curl that bends the first syllable into "MUR", and the d hardens when it should be a soft brush near a th. The unstressed e and o then want reducing. English speakers who know the word from "supermarket" also front-stress it — the beat belongs on CA, the second-to-last syllable.