Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "cinco" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce cinco in Spanish?

cinco is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈsiŋ.ko/. It means “five.” SEEN-koh. The first c is an s, the second is a hard k — same letter, two jobs.

SEEN-koh. The first c is an s, the second is a hard k — same letter, two jobs.

cinco /ˈsiŋ.ko/

Two syllables, CIN-co, weight on the first. Ending in a vowel puts it squarely under the default rule, so no accent is written. The pattern holds when the word grows: "cincuenta" moves the beat to cin-CUEN-ta, again the second-to-last syllable, and again unmarked.

Listen: cinco

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

Sound it out

ci Before i or e, c is a plain "s" in Latin American Spanish. Then the i is a tight "ee" as in "see". So the word opens "see", not "sin" or "chin".

n Standing before a k sound, this n backs up into the "ng" of "sing" without you having to think about it. Let it happen — forcing a front n makes the word sound stiff.

co Before o, the same letter c is a hard k with no puff of air, closed by a pure "oh".

Hear it in a sentence

El boleto cuesta cinco pesos.

The ticket costs five pesos.

Listen: El boleto cuesta cinco pesos.

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"El boleto cuesta cinco pesos" is worth hearing as a chain of s sounds — cuesta, cinco, pesos — every one of them a clean hiss with no z buzz anywhere. "Cuesta" also repeats the ue glide you met in "buenos": KWEHS-ta, one beat for the first syllable.

Where English speakers slip

The two c's are the puzzle. Learners either make both hard ("KEEN-ko") or both soft ("SEEN-so"), when Spanish assigns them by the following letter: c before e or i is s, c before a, o or u is k. Once you know the rule, "cinco" becomes a useful test word. A separate note for travelers: in most of Spain that first c is pronounced like the th of "think", but the s pronunciation used across Latin America is understood universally.