How to pronounce “cómo estás” in Spanish

How to pronounce "cómo estás" in 3 Spanish accents

Slashes show the phonetic spelling (IPA) — how it sounds, not how it’s written. . separates syllables; ˈ marks the stressed one.

Voices are generated separately from the transcription and may not reflect it exactly. Real speakers vary.

About "cómo estás"

One of the first phrases you'll learn in any Spanish class, cómo estás is the everyday, informal way to ask someone how they're doing — think of it as the equivalent of "how are you?" said to a friend, classmate, or someone you're on a first-name basis with. When speaking to a stranger or someone older, you'd swap estás for está to show respect. For pronunciation, the key is keeping both words light and connected, almost flowing together as a single breath rather than two separate chunks. The é in estás carries the stress, so make sure that syllable lands with a little extra weight. Watch out for the tendency to add a hard English h sound to the start of estás — Spanish doesn't do that. Regionally, you'll notice real variation: in Mexico, the s sounds stay crisp throughout, while in much of Spain, the c and z lean into a soft th-like sound. In Rioplatense Spanish, spoken around Buenos Aires, that final s in estás often softens into a breathy aspiration, almost disappearing entirely.