LingoDrop
Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "leer" in Spanish?
leh-EHR, two beats — the doubled e does not merge into one long vowel.
Two syllables, le-ER, with the beat on the second because of the r ending. The doubled vowel is a hiatus that needs no accent to hold it apart, since two strong vowels side by side are automatically separate in Spanish. In the past, though, a y gets inserted to break them up in speech: "leyó" rather than "leió".
Listen: leer
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
Me gusta leer por la noche.
I like reading at night.
Listen: Me gusta leer por la noche.
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"Me gusta leer por la noche" uses the gustar structure with an infinitive as the thing that pleases, so the verb stays singular. "Noche" is two beats, NO-cheh, with the ch as in "church". And Spanish says "por la noche" where English says at night — the preposition covers a span of time rather than a point.
Where English speakers slip
Nearly everyone reads the double e as a single long vowel and produces "leer" to rhyme with English "beer". It is two beats with a small break between them, and the second one carries the stress. The l is the quieter issue: keep it bright and forward, since English speakers tend to import a slightly darker l before a vowel. And the conjugated "leo" is also two beats, LEH-o, not one.