Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "a veces" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce a veces in Spanish?

a veces is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /a ˈbe.ses/. It means “sometimes.” ah BEH-sehs — the v is a b sound and both c and s here make the same hiss.

ah BEH-sehs — the v is a b sound and both c and s here make the same hiss.

a veces /a ˈbe.ses/

The phrase has one peak, on VE. "Veces" ends in s, so the default rule puts its beat on the second-to-last syllable with no accent needed. The singular is "vez", one syllable ending in z — and the spelling change from z to c before the plural e is a rule Spanish applies consistently.

Listen: a veces

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Sound it out

a A wide-open "ah" standing alone as the preposition, unstressed and leaning onto what follows.

v A b sound. Spanish makes no distinction between b and v, so the lips meet loosely and the teeth stay out of it.

ce Before an e, the c is a plain "s" in Latin American Spanish, followed by a short "eh" carrying the stress.

s A final voiceless hiss, spelled differently from the c but making exactly the same sound. Two identical hisses, two different letters.

Hear it in a sentence

A veces salgo a caminar.

Sometimes I go out for a walk.

Listen: A veces salgo a caminar.

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"A veces salgo a caminar" uses the phrase as a sentence opener, and "salgo" shows the irregular g that appears in the I form of "salir". The "a" before "caminar" is required after a verb of motion, so the sentence contains the same little word twice doing two different jobs.

Where English speakers slip

Buzz the v with your teeth and harden the c into a k, and the phrase arrives as "ah VEH-kehs". Neither is right: b sound at the front, s sound in the middle. The final s then gets voiced into a z. And in writing, learners often merge it into one word — it is two, "a veces", always separated.