Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "oír" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce oír in Spanish?

oír is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /oˈiɾ/. It means “to hear.” oh-EER, two separate beats — the accent is there specifically to keep the o and i apart.

oh-EER, two separate beats — the accent is there specifically to keep the o and i apart.

oír /oˈiɾ/

Two syllables, o-ÍR, and the accent is essential. Without it, "oir" would be read as one syllable with the o and i gliding together, and the word would sound like "oyr". The mark splits them into a hiatus and simultaneously pins the stress to the i. This is one of the clearest cases in Spanish of an accent changing syllable count rather than just loudness.

Listen: oír

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Sound it out

o A pure "oh" standing as its own syllable. It does not glide into what follows; the accent on the next vowel is what guarantees that.

í A tight "ee" as in "see", stressed. The accent mark is doing structural work here, forcing a hiatus where the letters would otherwise fuse.

r A single flick of the tongue tip to close the word.

Hear it in a sentence

No oigo nada desde aquí.

I can't hear anything from here.

Listen: No oigo nada desde aquí.

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"No oigo nada desde aquí" uses the irregular "oigo", where a g appears in the stem for the I form only. "No oigo" runs the two o sounds together into one longer vowel, so it comes out no-EE-go in practice. And the double negative with "nada" is compulsory in Spanish, not an error.

Where English speakers slip

Readers collapse the two vowels into one syllable, producing "oyr", exactly what the accent exists to prevent. Say "oh" and "eer" as two distinct beats. The second problem is the r, which English speakers curl into the shape of their own word "ear" — Spanish keeps the "ee" pure and adds a separate flick after it. The conjugated forms then bring their own trouble, since "oye" and "oyen" replace the i with a y consonant.