Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "fuerte" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce fuerte in Spanish?

fuerte is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈfweɾ.te/. It means “strong.” FWEHR-teh, two beats — the ue glides into one sound, so it is not "foo-EHR-teh".

FWEHR-teh, two beats — the ue glides into one sound, so it is not "foo-EHR-teh".

fuerte /ˈfweɾ.te/

FUER-te: two syllables, and the first carries the beat because the ue counts as a single diphthong and the word ends in a vowel. One form for both genders, and the plural "fuertes" keeps the same stress. Its noun relative "fuerza" also stresses the first syllable, FUER-za, with the z as a plain s.

Listen: fuerte

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Sound it out

fue A normal f, then the u glides straight into the e as a w. One beat, "fweh", and it carries the stress.

r A single tap of the tongue tip. It closes the stressed syllable without colouring the vowel before it — English would merge the two into a long "air".

te A dental t with no puff of air and a short "eh". Fully pronounced, which makes the word two syllables.

Hear it in a sentence

Hoy hay viento fuerte.

There's a strong wind today.

Listen: Hoy hay viento fuerte.

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"Hoy hay viento fuerte" puts the adjective after the noun. "Hay" and "hoy" sit side by side and differ only in their vowel glide — "oy" versus "eye" — with both h's silent. "Viento" starts with a v as a b sound and packs ie into one beat: BYEN-to.

Where English speakers slip

The ue gets split into two syllables, giving "foo-EHR-teh", when the u is a glide belonging to the first beat. Then the r pulls the vowel backward English-style, producing "FWAIR-teh". Keep the "eh" clean and flick the tongue once. The final e also gets dropped by readers who treat it as silent, which loses a whole syllable.