Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "la oficina" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce la oficina in Spanish?

la oficina is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /la o.fiˈsi.na/. It means “office.” lah oh-fee-SEE-nah, four beats — the c before i is an s, not a k.

lah oh-fee-SEE-nah, four beats — the c before i is an s, not a k.

la oficina /la o.fiˈsi.na/

Four syllables, o-fi-CI-na, with the weight on the second-to-last, following the default rule for a vowel-final word. The plural "oficinas" keeps it. The related "oficial" ends in l, so its beat moves to the final syllable — same stem, different ending, different rhythm.

Listen: la oficina

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Sound it out

la A bright l and a wide "ah". The noun starts with a vowel, so the two words link with no break: la-o-fi-SI-na.

o A pure "oh", unstressed but fully rounded.

fi A normal f and a tight "ee" as in "see".

ci Before an i, c is a plain "s", followed by another tight "ee" carrying the stress.

na A clean n and a wide-open "ah", the feminine ending.

Hear it in a sentence

Su oficina está en el centro.

Her office is downtown.

Listen: Su oficina está en el centro.

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"Su oficina está en el centro" links "su oficina" across the u into the o. "Centro" has a soft c before e and a tapped r in its cluster: SEN-tro. And "su" is ambiguous between his, her and their, which Spanish tolerates far more comfortably than English.

Where English speakers slip

The English "office" pulls the stress to the front and cuts the word short. Spanish has four full beats with the peak on CI. The c then gets hardened into a k, giving "o-fi-KEE-na", by readers who have not absorbed the c-before-i rule. And the two unstressed vowels at the front want reducing when they should stay clear.