Spanish Syllables and Syllabification Rules

Quick Answer

Knowing how to separate a word into syllables can help you pronounce and spell Spanish words correctly, as well as help you decide if a word needs a written accent or not.

General Syllabification Rules

The fancy word for dividing a word into syllables is syllabification. Here are some general rules for Spanish syllabification.

Consonant Plus Vowel

Whenever possible, you should break up words so that each syllable contains a consonant followed by a vowel. A consonant between two vowels belongs to the syllable with the second vowel. The goal is to end a syllable with a vowel whenever possible.

Check out the syllabification of these common Spanish words.

Word	Syllabification
sábana	sá-ba-na
gato	ga-to
casa	ca-sa
mano	ma-no
oro	o-ro
mesa	me-sa

Two Consecutive Consonants

Two consecutive consonants will generally belong to separate syllables. However, if the second consonant in a consonant pair is r or l, the consonant pair is not separated into different syllables.

Words that begin with prefixes often violate the above rules. For example the syllabification of enloqueceris en-lo-que-cer.

Check out the syllabification of these common Spanish words containing consecutive consonants.

Word	Syllabification
cuando	cuan-do
alcanzar	al-can-zar
costa	cos-ta
sombrilla	som-bri-lla
clave	cla-ve
trabajo	tra-ba-jo
aplicar	a-pli-car
frecuente	fre-cuen-te
hecho	he-cho
amarillo	a-ma-ri-llo
carro	ca-rro
merengue	me-ren-gue

In Puerto Rico and most of Spain, the consonant cluster tl is divided into separate syllables. For example, the syllabification of atlánticois at-lán-ti-co.

In other regions, such as Mexico and the Canary Islands of Spain, the consonant cluster tl is not divided into separate syllables. For example, the syllabification of atlánticois a-tlán-ti-co and the syllabification of tlacuache(possum) is tla-cua-che.

Three Consecutive Consonants

When three consonants appear together, the first one will generally belong to a separate syllable.

Check out the syllabification of these words with three consecutive consonants.

Word	Syllabification
inglés	in-glés
compresar	com-pre-sar
panfleto	pan-fle-to
ombligo	om-bli-go
constante	cons-tan-te

Strong and Weak Vowels

Spanish has both strong vowels (a, e, o) and weak vowels (i, u). Here are some rules on how the combinations of these vowels are divided into syllables.

Two weak vowels together form a diphthong and are not separated into different syllables. Example: fui
An unaccented weak vowel followed by a strong vowel form a diphthong and are not separated into different syllables. Examples: Juan, viento
A strong vowel followed by an unaccented weak vowel form a diphthong and are not separated into different syllables. Examples: causa, veinte
Two strong vowels together form a hiatus and are separated into different syllables. Example: Leo
A weak vowel and a strong vowel form a hiatus when the weak vowel is the stressed vowel and are therefore separated into different syllables. Examples: raíz, María, laúd
Two identical vowels that appear one after the other (or separated only by the letter h) form a hiatus and are separated into different syllables. Examples: poseer, azahar