Spanish Phonetic Transcription Translator and Pronunciation Dictionary
Thank you for your interest!
Here's how it works.
This phonetic translator has several settings, such as Split the words into syllables (see the section Advanced options).
Each time you change the settings, the phonetic transcription of the sample texts below is automatically updated.
The only exceptions are premium features (Read the text aloud and Translate the text into your native language). We already created computer-generated audio for each sample text for you.
Transcription above each word
Transcription under each line of text
Transcription under each paragraph of text
Phonetic symbols cheat sheet
How to use this Spanish phonetic translator
Introduction
This phonetic translator will help you obtain very accurate phonetic transcription of your Spanish text.
It uses the symbols of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) — the most popular phonetic transcription system in the world.
If you need to copy the phonetic transcription into another program or print it, please read our FAQ.
Watch a tutorial "How to convert text to phonetic transcription and listen to audio recordings of words"
Number of audio recordings in our Spanish pronunciation dictionary
We hired professional voice-over artists to record the correct pronunciation of the most popular Spanish words. The number of the audio recordings is indicated in the following table. Click the buttons to listen to the sample words.
| Adrian | Mexican Spanish | 10,000 words |
Adrian
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| Karen | Mexican Spanish | 10,000 words |
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Karen
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Premium features: high-quality computer-generated audio and automatic translation
The subscription Premium gives you access to some additional features in this phonetic translator:
- You will be able to generate the audio of your text using a selection of high-quality text-to-speech voices.
- You will be able to obtain an automatic translation of your text into your native language.
Please read our FAQ to learn more about premium features.
Create your own custom word lists
You can create your own custom word lists using this phonetic translator. Here's how you can do it:
- For the setting Transcription display options select the option transcription above each word.
- In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option " to word list".
- After submitting your text, click on the word you want to add to the word list and then click the button " to word list".
- You will be prompted to select the transcription and enter the meaning/translation of the word (the latter for most languages is optional).
- Once you finished adding words to your word list, click on My Account at the top of the page and then on My word lists. You will see the list of all your word lists.
There are so many things you can do with your word list:
- export it into a file (Word, Excel, plain text),
- print it from your browser,
- share it with other people (for example, your students),
- practice pronunciation of every word using the audio recordings of real people (if available) or high-quality text-to-speech voices.
Watch a tutorial "How to create custom word lists"
European Spanish and Latin American Spanish
This Spanish phonetic translator supports both European and Latin American Spanish.
If you are a beginner and want a quick solution, choose the following settings:
for European Spanish -
"Callo" and "cayo" are pronounced the same - off
"Caza" and "casa" are pronounced the same - off
The letter x before consonants is pronounced as - s
for Latin American Spanish -
"Callo" and "cayo" are pronounced the same - on
"Caza" and "casa" are pronounced the same - on
The letter x before consonants is pronounced as - ks
However there are exceptions to this "rule" in both Spain and Latin America. So, if you are more advanced student, you may want to learn more about Spanish phonology, including:
- yeísmo - when the words such as "callo" and "cayo" are pronounced the same
- seseo - when the words such as "caza" and "casa" are pronounced the same
Broad and narrow transcription
This phonetic translator can show both broad (phonemic) and narrow transcriptions. If you need phonemic transcription, please uncheck the following settings in the section Advanced options:
- Display allophones for the phonemes /l/, /m/ and /n/
- Display allophones for the phonemes /p/, /t/ and /k/
- Display allophones for the phoneme /e/
- Display tilde diacritic over nasal vowels
Highlighting of high-frequency Spanish words
In the section Advanced options you will find a special option that allows you to highlight high-frequency Spanish words. The words from different frequency intervals will be highlighted in the following colors:
| 1–1000 | 1001–2000 | 2001–3000 | 3001–4000 | 4001–5000 |
If you want to make the frequency analysis of your text and obtain the detailed statistics, please use Spanish word frequency counter.
Learning Spanish as second language: phonetic transcription can help you improve your Spanish pronunciation
Spanish pronunciation is relatively simple compared to other languages. The pronunciation rules in the Spanish language are quite strict.
Still, it may take you a while to learn how Spanish letters are pronounced depending on their position inside the word and the surrounding words.
This tool will serve you as an Spanish pronunciation guide and will help you save time. You will no longer need to look up the pronunciation of words in a dictionary.
If you use the phonetic transcription regularly in combination with Spanish audio and video recordings, your pronunciation and listening skills in the Spanish language will improve.
Do you learn or teach Spanish?
We know sometimes Spanish may seem complicated. We don't want you to waste your time.
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Books on Spanish phonology that we recommend
The algorithm of this phonetic translator is based on the Spanish pronunciation rules as they are described in the book Manual de fonética y fonología españolas. The book is in Spanish, and it's really one of the best you can find on the topic.
Check our Spanish phonetic subtitle converter and obtain something like this:
Greetings from the developer Timur
Find out how to activate your brain and learn faster (4 min.)
Timur Baytukalov. A Complete Guide to Language Learning. Part 1: Learning Pronunciation
Free Webinar "Phonetic transcription for fast language learning" (20 min.)
- Phonetics and pronunciation glossary
- Spanish Phonetic Subtitle Converter
- Spanish dictionaries online – Project Modelino
- Spanish alphabet – Wikipedia
- Spanish phonology – Wikipedia
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To develop this translator, we used information from different sources mentioned on this page. The phonetic transcription was taken from these sources in accordance with the Copyright Act of Canada (Paragraph 29, Fair Dealing for the purpose of education).
