Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "hablar" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce hablar in Spanish?

hablar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /aˈβlaɾ/. It means “to speak / to talk.” ah-BLAR — silent h, a soft b, and the stress on the second syllable.

ah-BLAR — silent h, a soft b, and the stress on the second syllable.

hablar /aˈβlaɾ/

Two syllables, ha-BLAR, beat at the end, since the word finishes in r. In the present tense the stress hops onto the stem for every form except "we": "HA-blo", "HA-blas", "HA-bla", but "ha-BLA-mos". That shift is entirely predictable once you know the default rule — the beat lands on the second-to-last syllable of whatever the form ends up being.

Listen: hablar

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Sound it out

h Silent, so the word begins on the vowel with no puff of breath.

a A wide-open "ah". Unstressed and quick, but not reduced — English would swallow this into "uh".

bl The b sits between a vowel and an l, so it goes soft: the lips approach without meeting and the voice hums through. Then a bright, forward l with no vowel inserted between them.

ar A wide "ah" carrying the stress, closed by a single tap of the r.

Hear it in a sentence

¿Hablas español?

Do you speak Spanish?

Listen: ¿Hablas español?

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"¿Hablas español?" is the sentence every learner uses first, and it contains two accent-worthy details. "Hablas" ends in s so the default puts the beat on HA with nothing written; "español" ends in l so the default puts the beat on the last syllable, again with nothing written — and the ñ in the middle is one fused sound, not n plus y.

Where English speakers slip

Voicing the h gives "hab-LAR" with a breathy start, which is the most audible error. The b is next: English pops it, where here it should be a soft, almost frictionless sound because a vowel precedes it. And the stress gets pulled forward to "HA-blar" by English habit, when a word ending in r takes the beat on its last syllable.