Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "seis" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce seis in Spanish?

seis is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /sejs/. It means “six.” sayss, one syllable — the ei glides like the vowel in "say", bracketed by two clean s sounds.

sayss, one syllable — the ei glides like the vowel in "say", bracketed by two clean s sounds.

seis /sejs/

A single beat, so placement is not a question. The interesting comparison is "seis" against "seiscientos" — the number grows and the stress obeys the default rule, landing on seis-CIEN-tos. And note "veinte" nearby, which uses the same ei diphthong: VEIN-te.

Listen: seis

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Sound it out

s A voiceless hiss to open, tongue near the ridge behind the upper teeth.

ei The e and i fuse into a single gliding vowel, close to the "ay" of English "say" but tighter and quicker. One beat, not two — this is a diphthong, not a hiatus.

s Another voiceless hiss to close. Spanish never lets a final s slide into a z.

Hear it in a sentence

Vuelvo a las seis.

I'll come back at six.

Listen: Vuelvo a las seis.

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"Vuelvo a las seis" shows the ue glide again in "vuelvo" — and both letters written v in that word are pronounced as soft b sounds, since Spanish makes no distinction between b and v at all. The "a las seis" runs together as one phrase, ah-las-SAYSS, which is the standard way to say at six o'clock.

Where English speakers slip

Beginners split the vowel into two syllables, "SEH-ees", because English reads e and i as separate letters. Spanish glides them into one. Then there is the final s, which English habitually voices after a vowel — "sayz" instead of "sayss". Both s sounds here must hiss. Native speakers in the Caribbean and parts of the coast do soften final s toward an h, but that is a regional feature, not a shortcut for learners.