Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "el tiempo" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce el tiempo in Spanish?

el tiempo is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /el ˈtjem.po/. It means “time / weather.” el TYEM-poh, two beats in the noun — the ie glides into one sound.

el TYEM-poh, two beats in the noun — the ie glides into one sound.

el tiempo /el ˈtjem.po/

Two syllables, TIEM-po, beat on the first because the ie counts as a single diphthong and the word ends in a vowel. The related adverb "a tiempo" keeps the same rhythm, and the plural "tiempos" adds nothing to the stress since an s ending falls under the same default.

Listen: el tiempo

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Sound it out

el A short "eh" and a bright forward l, unstressed and leaning onto the noun.

tiem A dry dental t, then the i glides into the e as a y, closed by an m. One beat, "tyem", and it carries the stress. Spanish writes m rather than n before a p.

po An unaspirated p and a pure "oh", unstressed but fully rounded.

Hear it in a sentence

No tengo tiempo hoy.

I don't have time today.

Listen: No tengo tiempo hoy.

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"No tengo tiempo hoy" uses "tiempo" in the sense of available time. The same word means weather — "¿qué tiempo hace?" — and also a verb tense in grammar. Which meaning applies depends entirely on the verb around it. "Tengo" backs its n into an "ng" before the g, and "hoy" has a silent h.

Where English speakers slip

The ie gets split into two syllables, giving "tee-EM-po", when it should be one glide. The t then wants an English puff of air, and the final o wants reducing. Semantically, the trap is that Spanish splits what English calls time into "tiempo" for duration and "vez" for occasions and "hora" for clock time — using "tiempo" for all three produces sentences no native speaker would say.