Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "todavía" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce todavía in Spanish?

todavía is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /to.ðaˈβi.a/. It means “still / yet.” toh-thah-BEE-ah, four beats — the accent splits the i from the a at the end.

toh-thah-BEE-ah, four beats — the accent splits the i from the a at the end.

todavía /to.ðaˈβi.a/

Four syllables, to-da-VÍ-a, and the accent forces a hiatus. A weak i beside a strong a would normally form a diphthong, which would make the word three syllables and put the beat on VIA. The mark splits them and fixes the stress on the i — the same mechanism at work in "día", "frío" and "vacío".

Listen: todavía

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

Sound it out

to A dental t with no puff of air and a pure "oh", unstressed.

da A soft d between vowels, close to the th of "those", plus a wide-open "ah".

ví The v is a b, and a soft one because it sits between vowels. Then a tight "ee" carrying the accent and the stress.

a A wide-open "ah" standing as its own syllable. Without the accent on the i, these two vowels would fuse into a single gliding beat.

Hear it in a sentence

Todavía estoy en la oficina.

I'm still at the office.

Listen: Todavía estoy en la oficina.

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

"Todavía estoy en la oficina" opens with the adverb, and "todavía estoy" runs the final a straight into the e with no break. "Oficina" is four beats with a soft c before i: o-fi-SEE-na. Spanish uses estar for location, as always.

Where English speakers slip

Collapse the ía into one syllable and you get "to-da-VYAH", exactly what the accent forbids. Say "BEE" and "ah" as two beats. Then the v gets buzzed and the d gets hardened, when both should be soft. And the two opening vowels want reducing into a mumble — every vowel in this four-syllable word is fully pronounced.