Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "ocupado" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce ocupado in Spanish?

ocupado is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /o.kuˈpa.ðo/. It means “busy.” oh-koo-PAH-thoh, four beats with an unaspirated p and a soft d.

oh-koo-PAH-thoh, four beats with an unaspirated p and a soft d.

ocupado /o.kuˈpa.ðo/

Four syllables, o-cu-PA-do, with the weight on the second-to-last, which is the default placement for a vowel-final word. Compare "preocupado" just above: adding the pre- prefix stretches the word to five syllables but leaves the beat in the same relative place, because the rule counts from the end rather than the start.

Listen: ocupado

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

o A pure "oh" opening the word, unstressed but fully rounded.

cu A hard k with no puff of air and a pure "oo" as in "boot". Not the "yoo" of English "occupy".

pa An unaspirated p and a wide-open "ah", carrying the stress.

do A soft d between vowels, close to the th of "those", plus a final pure "oh".

Hear it in a sentence

Hoy estoy muy ocupado.

I'm very busy today.

Listen: Hoy estoy muy ocupado.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Hoy estoy muy ocupado" uses estar, since being busy is a passing state. "Hoy" has a silent h and glides like the end of English "boy". Say "estoy muy ocupado" and every word links to the next, with the y of "muy" running straight into the o.

Where English speakers slip

The English "occupied" inserts a y glide and reduces the vowels, giving "OK-yu-pide". Spanish wants four full beats — oh, oo, ah, oh — with the peak on PA. The d then gets hardened when it should be soft, and in fast speech native speakers often reduce it to nothing, giving "ocupao". That reduction is normal, not lazy.