Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "una" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce una in Spanish?

una is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈu.na/. It means “a / an (f.).” OO-nah, two beats — "oo" as in boot, then a wide-open "ah".

OO-nah, two beats — "oo" as in boot, then a wide-open "ah".

una /ˈu.na/

Two syllables, U-na, with the weight on the first, straight from the default rule for a word ending in a vowel. Unlike its masculine partner, "una" does not shorten before a noun — you say "una mesa", not "un mesa" — so the two-syllable shape stays intact almost everywhere.

Listen: una

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Sound it out

u A pure "oo" as in "boot", lips rounded before the sound begins. This is the stressed beat.

na A clean n at the upper teeth, then an open "ah" as in "father". Unstressed, but held at full quality — that final a is what marks the word feminine and it has to be audible.

Hear it in a sentence

Hay una farmacia aquí cerca.

There's a pharmacy near here.

Listen: Hay una farmacia aquí cerca.

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"Hay una farmacia aquí cerca" pairs the feminine article with "farmacia", four beats ending far-MA-cia with the ia fusing into one syllable. "Hay" is a single beat, pronounced "eye", with a silent h. And "aquí" carries an accent because it ends in a vowel and the beat needs to stay on the final í — without the mark you would say A-qui.

Where English speakers slip

The final a is the sound that gets lost. English reduces every unstressed final vowel, so "una" comes out "OO-nuh" and the feminine marker disappears into a mumble. Keep it open. There is a genuinely surprising exception to know as well: a feminine noun starting with a stressed a takes "un" instead — "un agua", "un águila" — purely to avoid two a sounds colliding, even though the noun stays grammatically feminine.