La empresa despidió al empleado.

Despidió is the third-person singular preterite form of despedir, so it means fired.

• despedir = to fire / to dismiss / also to say goodbye to
• despidió = he/she/it fired
• despedido = fired / dismissed as a past participle, not the main finite verb here

So in this sentence, La empresa despidió al empleado, the verb has to be a conjugated form, and that is why despidió is correct.

Because this is the combination of two things:

1. the personal a
2. the contraction a + el = al

Spanish often uses the personal a before a specific human direct object.

Here, el empleado is a person and a specific one, so Spanish says:

• a el empleado → al empleado

That is why you get despidió al empleado.

A very common learner mistake is to leave out the a and say despidió el empleado, but that would sound wrong if el empleado is the person being fired.

The personal a is a preposition used before specific people when they are the direct object of the verb.

In this sentence:

• La empresa = the subject
• despidió = the verb
• al empleado = the direct object

Because the employee is a person, Spanish normally adds a.

Compare:

• Veo al profesor = I see the teacher
• Llamaron a María = They called María
• Despidieron al empleado = They fired the employee

English does not do this, so it often feels strange at first.

Empresa is a grammatically feminine noun, so it takes la.

That does not mean the company is biologically female. In Spanish, all nouns have grammatical gender, and empresa happens to be feminine:

• la empresa
• una empresa

This is just a property of the noun, like la mesa or la ciudad.

Spanish uses definite articles more often than English, and in this sentence both nouns are presented as specific:

• la empresa = the company
• el empleado = the employee

So the sentence is talking about a particular company and a particular employee, or at least treating them as known in context.

Without the articles, the sentence would sound unnatural in most normal contexts:

• Empresa despidió empleado ❌

No. Despedir has more than one meaning.

Common meanings include:

• to fire / dismiss from a job
• to say goodbye to
• in some contexts, to emit / give off (for example, a smell)

So context matters.

Examples:

• La empresa despidió al empleado = The company fired the employee
• Fui a despedir a mi amigo al aeropuerto = I went to say goodbye to my friend at the airport

This is a very common verb where the surrounding words tell you which meaning is intended.

The accent mark shows the correct stress: des-pi-DIÓ.

It also helps identify the form as the third-person singular preterite:

• yo despedí
• tú despediste
• él/ella/usted despidió

Without the accent, despidio, it would be a spelling mistake.

So the accent is not optional; it is part of the correct written form.

In standard Spanish pronunciation, it is approximately:

des-pi-DYOH

More carefully:

• des = like dess
• pi = like pee
• dió = roughly dyoh, with the stress there

So the whole word is:

des-pi-DIÓ

In Spain, the d between vowels is often softer than in English, so it may sound less strong than an English d.

Yes, in many contexts echar can mean to fire, and in Spain it is very common in everyday speech.

Compare:

• La empresa despidió al empleado = more neutral/formal
• La empresa echó al empleado = common, a bit more colloquial

Both can mean the same thing, but despedir is often the safer choice in more formal or written contexts.

The normal, neutral order is:

Subject + verb + object
La empresa despidió al empleado.

Spanish word order is more flexible than English, but this is the most natural default sentence order.

You may see other orders for emphasis, for example:

• Al empleado lo despidió la empresa.

That puts more focus on the employee. But for a straightforward statement, La empresa despidió al empleado is the best basic pattern to learn.

Spanish marks this clearly through grammar:

• La empresa is the subject
• despidió is the verb
• al empleado is the direct object

The personal a before empleado helps show that the employee is the object, not the subject.

So the meaning is:

• the company = the one doing the action
• the employee = the one receiving the action

That is one reason the personal a is so useful.