Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "llamar" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce llamar in Spanish?

llamar is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʝaˈmaɾ/. It means “to call.” yah-MAR — the double l is a y sound, and the stress is at the end.

yah-MAR — the double l is a y sound, and the stress is at the end.

llamar /ʝaˈmaɾ/

Two syllables, lla-MAR, beat on the last because of the r ending. Note that the double l counts as a single consonant when dividing syllables, so the split is lla-mar rather than anything involving both l's. In the reflexive "llamarse", adding the pronoun does not move the stress: it stays on MAR.

Listen: llamar

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Sound it out

ll One sound, not two, and across Latin America it is a firm "y" as in "yes" — the middle of the tongue rising toward the roof of the mouth. In Argentina it becomes a "zh" as in "measure"; nowhere is it an English l.

a A wide-open "ah". Unstressed, but at full value.

mar A normal m, a second open "ah" carrying the stress, and a single tapped r.

Hear it in a sentence

Voy a llamar a mi mamá.

I'm going to call my mom.

Listen: Voy a llamar a mi mamá.

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"Voy a llamar a mi mamá" contains the personal "a" before a human object — you call to my mother, in the literal Spanish — which English has no equivalent for. "Mamá" carries an accent because it ends in a vowel and the default would give MA-ma; the mark pushes the beat to the second syllable, and dropping it would produce a different word.

Where English speakers slip

Give the ll an English value and you get "lla-MAR" with an actual l, or worse, "luh-MAR" with two separate l sounds. It is one y. The two a's then get differentiated, English-style, when they should be identical. And in the reflexive form, "me llamo" literally means I call myself — learners who translate it as my name is will struggle to conjugate it correctly.