LingoDrop
Spanish · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "la semana" in Spanish?
lah seh-MAH-nah, three beats in the noun with the stress in the middle.
se-MA-na: three syllables, and the second-to-last carries the beat, as the default rule prescribes. The plural "semanas" keeps it there. Note the related "fin de semana" places the main peak elsewhere entirely — on the SE of "semana" the stress survives, but the phrase's rhythm centres on "fin" and "semana" together.
Listen: la semana
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Hear it in a sentence
Trabajo cinco días a la semana.
I work five days a week.
Listen: Trabajo cinco días a la semana.
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"Trabajo cinco días a la semana" uses "a la semana" for a rate, where English says per week. "Días" carries its accent breaking the i from the a, and "cinco" has a soft c before i and a hard one before o. The whole phrase links across without pauses.
Where English speakers slip
The two unstressed vowels get reduced into a mumble, giving "suh-MAH-nuh", when the e should be a clear "eh" and both a's wide open. The s between vowels also gets voiced into a z. And a false-friend warning: "semana" is a week, not a semester — that would be "semestre", which looks even more like the English word and means the same thing.