German · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "sechs" in German?

Q: How do you pronounce sechs in German?

sechs is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /zɛks/. It means “six.” ZEKS, rhyming with English wrecks. The s at the start buzzes like a z, and chs is simply 'ks' with no throaty scrape at all.

ZEKS, rhyming with English wrecks. The s at the start buzzes like a z, and chs is simply 'ks' with no throaty scrape at all.

sechs /zɛks/

One syllable, made abrupt by the consonant cluster shutting it. Compare sechzehn and sechzig, where the s vanishes and the ch turns into a genuine ich-laut: the stress stays on sech- throughout, but the sounds themselves rearrange.

Listen: sechs

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Sound it out

s Before a vowel at the start of a word, German s is voiced like English z. So this number opens with a buzz, not a hiss.

e Short, open 'e' as in bed.

chs An exception worth memorising: in a small set of old words — sechs, wachsen, Fuchs — the letters chs are pronounced 'ks', as if written x. The ch surrenders its usual friction entirely.

Hear it in a sentence

Ich bin um sechs zurück.

I'll be back at six.

Listen: Ich bin um sechs zurück.

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Ich bin um sechs zurück tells the time with um and pairs nicely with zurück, which opens on the ts of z, carries the unstressed prefix zu-, and puts its beat on RÜCK with the short front-rounded ü. That final ck is a plain k.

Where English speakers slip

Two spelling reflexes fight each other here. English speakers hiss the initial s, where German voices it into a z in front of a vowel. And having just been taught that ch is a throaty scrape, learners dutifully apply it and produce something like 'zekh-s'. In this particular word chs is flatly 'ks' — nothing scrapes.