Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "se" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce se in Spanish?

se is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /se/. It means “-self (reflexive pronoun).” seh, one light syllable — a hissing s and the vowel of "bed".

seh, one light syllable — a hissing s and the vowel of "bed".

se /se/

One unstressed syllable that never takes the beat. It clings to the verb: "se llama" is heard as a single rhythmic unit with the weight on LLA, and "se" is barely more than a breath before it.

Listen: se

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Sound it out

s A voiceless hiss. Spanish s stays out of the throat in every position, so there is no z buzz here even though a voiced vowel follows.

e A short "eh" as in "bed". Unstressed, but never blurred into "uh" — Spanish has no reduced vowel to blur into.

Hear it in a sentence

Ella se llama Sofía.

Her name is Sofía.

Listen: Ella se llama Sofía.

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"Ella se llama Sofía" literally says "she calls herself Sofía" — the reflexive "se" is what turns calling into being called. "Llama" begins with the double l, a y sound across Latin America, so YA-ma. And "Sofía" carries an accent to break the i away from the a and hold the stress on it: so-FEE-a, three beats.

Where English speakers slip

Sound-wise this is easy; the trap is that learners read it as English "say" and add a glide to the vowel. Keep it flat and short. The bigger difficulty is that this tiny word does at least four unrelated jobs — reflexive, impersonal, passive, and a stand-in for the indirect object pronoun "le" before "lo" or "la". Do not confuse it with "sé" (I know), which is a different word wearing an accent.