How to pronounce “paella”

py-EL-uh

3 syllables · stress on “EL”

pyELuh

Britishpaɪˈelə

Americanpaɪˈeljə

In short

“paella” is pronounced py-EL-uh: 3 syllables, with the stress on “EL”. Spanish ll is a /j/ glide, closer to the y in “yes” than to an English l. The first syllable is also a diphthong, not a plain “pay”. The version to avoid is pay-EL-ah with a hard English l, or pa-EL-ah.

Say “paella” in 3 steps

1Three syllables: py-EL-uh.
2The ll is a y-glide, so the middle is closer to “el-ya” than a hard “ella”.
3Stress the middle syllable.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: pay-EL-ah with a hard English l, or pa-EL-ah

Spanish ll is a /j/ glide, closer to the y in “yes” than to an English l. The first syllable is also a diphthong, not a plain “pay”.

Hear real people say it

Model audio is consistent; real speech is not. Hearing several actual speakers is what makes a word recognisable when someone says it at full speed.

Real speakers

1 human recording

Actual people saying “paella”, not a synthetic voice. Real speech varies — that variation is what you need to recognise, and what a single model voice cannot show you.

Recordings from Wikimedia Commons by Paul2520, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Full credits.

Practise it out loud

Reading about a sound does not change your mouth. Say it, hear it back, and fix one thing at a time.

Say it yourself

0/6 practised

Listen first, then record. You get feedback on the individual sounds, the stress and the rhythm — no account needed, and nothing is stored.

Three speakers per accent

Recordings are used only to generate this feedback and are not stored. Your accent is never penalised: IELTS scores intelligibility, and so do we.

The sounds inside this word

Each links to a full guide with mouth position, audio and drills. If a word keeps failing, the problem is usually one of these.

pp as in pen aɪi as in my ee as in bed ll as in light əa as in about (schwa)

More food and drink words

Same pattern, same fix. Learning them as a group is far faster than one at a time.

croissantKWAS-on quinoaKEEN-wah gnocchiNYOK-ee bruschettabroo-SKET-uh espressoe-SPRES-oh jalapeñohal-uh-PAY-nyoh

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce paella?

paella is pronounced py-EL-uh, written /paɪˈelə/ in IPA. Three syllables: py-EL-uh.

How many syllables are in paella?

three: py-EL-uh. The stress falls on “EL”.

What is the most common mistake with paella?

pay-EL-ah with a hard English l, or pa-EL-ah. Spanish ll is a /j/ glide, closer to the y in “yes” than to an English l. The first syllable is also a diphthong, not a plain “pay”.

The full sound library

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