Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "hacer" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce hacer in Spanish?

hacer is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /aˈseɾ/. It means “to do / to make.” ah-SEHR — the h is silent, so the word starts on a vowel, and the c is an s sound.

ah-SEHR — the h is silent, so the word starts on a vowel, and the c is an s sound.

hacer /aˈseɾ/

Two syllables, ha-CER, beat at the end because the word finishes in r. This verb is spectacularly irregular once conjugated: "HA-go" for I do, "HI-zo" for he did, "ha-RÁ" for will do — with that last one needing an accent to hold the stress on the final vowel. The infinitive's own pattern is the one predictable thing about it.

Listen: hacer

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

Sound it out

h Silent, as in every Spanish word. Begin on the vowel with no breath in front of it.

a A wide-open "ah", unstressed but not reduced. English would swallow an opening unstressed vowel into "uh"; Spanish keeps it wide.

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

r One quick tap of the tongue tip to close the word.

Hear it in a sentence

Voy a hacer la cena.

I'm going to make dinner.

Listen: Voy a hacer la cena.

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

"Voy a hacer la cena" builds the near future with "voy a" plus an infinitive, and because "hacer" starts with a silent h, the "a" of the construction runs straight into it: voy-a-a-SER, with the two a sounds merging into one longer vowel. "Cena" also has a soft c, so it is SEH-na — three s sounds in a short sentence, all hissed.

Where English speakers slip

Two letters mislead at once: the h picks up a breathy start, giving "ha-SER", and the c sometimes hardens into a k, giving "a-KER". Neither letter behaves the way English suggests: h is mute and c before e is an s. Then the stress: English speakers front-load it as "HA-ser", when the r ending puts the weight firmly on the last syllable.