LingoDrop
Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "la estación" in Spanish?
lah es-tah-SYOHN, three beats — the c is an s and the io glides into one sound.
Three syllables, es-ta-CIÓN, and the accent is load-bearing. The word ends in n, so the default rule would give es-TA-cion. The mark moves the beat to the end. The plural "estaciones" drops the accent, since the added syllable puts the default stress where it belongs — the standard pattern for every -ción noun.
Listen: la estación
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
¿Dónde está la estación?
Where is the station?
Listen: ¿Dónde está la estación?
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"¿Dónde está la estación?" links "la estación" across the a into the e with no break. "Dónde" carries an accent marking it as a question word rather than moving its stress, and "está" carries one that genuinely moves the beat. Two accents, two different jobs.
Where English speakers slip
The -ción ending gets read as the English "-tion", producing "es-TAY-shun" with a sh sound. Spanish has no sh at all: it is a clean s plus a y glide, all in one beat. The accent then gets ignored, and the opening cluster gets propped up with an extra vowel. Note that every English "-tion" word has a Spanish "-ción" cousin with the stress at the end.