Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "la persona" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce la persona in Spanish?

la persona is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /la peɾˈso.na/. It means “person.” lah pehr-SOH-nah — always feminine, even when the person is a man.

lah pehr-SOH-nah — always feminine, even when the person is a man.

la persona /la peɾˈso.na/

Three syllables — per-SO-na — with the stress on the second-to-last, which is the default placement. The plural "personas" keeps it there. What is worth knowing is that this noun is grammatically feminine no matter who it refers to, so a group of men is still "tres personas" with feminine agreement throughout.

Listen: la persona

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Sound it out

la A bright l and a wide "ah", unstressed.

per An unaspirated p, a short "eh", and a single tap of the r. The vowel must not be coloured by the r.

so A voiceless hiss and a pure "oh" carrying the stress.

na A clean n and a wide-open "ah", unstressed but fully open.

Hear it in a sentence

¿Cuántas personas vienen?

How many people are coming?

Listen: ¿Cuántas personas vienen?

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"¿Cuántas personas vienen?" uses the feminine "cuántas" precisely because "personas" is feminine, regardless of who is coming. "Vienen" shows the stem change from "venir" with ie in one beat, and its v is a b sound: BYEH-nen.

Where English speakers slip

The English "person" pulls the stress to the front and reduces the ending, giving "PER-sun". Spanish has three full syllables with the beat in the middle. The r then wants an English curl instead of a flick, and the s between vowels wants voicing into a z. Grammatically, remember the fixed feminine gender — "un persona" is wrong even for a man.