Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "parecer" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce parecer in Spanish?

parecer is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /pa.ɾeˈseɾ/. It means “to seem.” pah-reh-SEHR, three beats with the stress at the end and a c that sounds like s.

pah-reh-SEHR, three beats with the stress at the end and a c that sounds like s.

parecer /pa.ɾeˈseɾ/

Three syllables, pa-re-CER, beat at the end from the r ending. The irregularity hides in the I form: "parezco", where a z appears before the c to keep the sound right — pa-RES-ko. Every verb ending in -ecer does this, so learning it once covers conocer, ofrecer, agradecer and dozens more.

Listen: parecer

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Sound it out

pa An unaspirated p and a wide-open "ah". Hold a palm to your mouth: nothing should move.

re A single tap of the tongue tip — this r is between vowels, so it never trills — then a short "eh".

cer Before an e, the c is a plain "s". Another short "eh" carries the stress, and a single tapped r closes the word.

Hear it in a sentence

Ese hotel parece caro.

That hotel seems expensive.

Listen: Ese hotel parece caro.

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"Ese hotel parece caro" uses the third-person form, stressed pa-RE-ce, and the sentence needs no "to be" — Spanish says the hotel seems expensive with one verb where English uses two words. "Caro" is stressed CA-ro with a single tapped r, and the h in "hotel" is silent as always.

Where English speakers slip

The c gets hardened into a k, producing "pa-re-KER", which is the commonest reading error for anyone who has not internalised that c before e is an s. The r between vowels then gets the English curl instead of a flick. And when conjugating, learners write "pareco" for I seem — the correct form grows a z, "parezco", and that spelling is genuinely unpredictable from the infinitive.