Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "volver" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce volver in Spanish?

volver is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /bolˈbeɾ/. It means “to come back / to return.” bohl-BEHR — both v's are b sounds, and the stress lands on the second syllable.

bohl-BEHR — both v's are b sounds, and the stress lands on the second syllable.

volver /bolˈbeɾ/

Two syllables, vol-VER, weight at the end thanks to the r. This verb is stem-changing: when the beat lands on the stem, the o splits into ue, giving VUEL-vo and VUEL-ves; when it moves away, the plain o returns in vol-VE-mos. The rhythm is what triggers the spelling change.

Listen: volver

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Sound it out

v A b sound at the start of the word: lips meeting gently and parting, with no contact between teeth and lip anywhere.

ol A pure "oh" followed by a bright, forward l. English would darken this l because it comes before a consonant; Spanish keeps it light.

v The second v is also a b, and because it sits between a consonant and a vowel it is soft — the lips approach without fully meeting.

er A short "eh" carrying the stress, closed by a single tap of the r.

Hear it in a sentence

Vuelvo en cinco minutos.

I'll be back in five minutes.

Listen: Vuelvo en cinco minutos.

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"Vuelvo en cinco minutos" uses the stem-changed form, so listen for BWEL-bo with both v's as b sounds and the ue as a single glide. "Cinco" has a soft c before i, and "minutos" is stressed on NU, the second-to-last syllable. Spanish uses "en" for an amount of time from now, where English says in.

Where English speakers slip

Two v's, and English speakers buzz both with teeth on lip, producing an unmistakably foreign "vol-VAIR". Make them b sounds. The l then gets pulled back and darkened before the consonant, the way English does in "volt" — keep it forward. And when conjugating, "volvo" instead of "vuelvo" is the standard beginner error, since nothing in the infinitive warns you the vowel will split.