Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "siete" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce siete in Spanish?

siete is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ˈsje.te/. It means “seven.” SYEH-teh in two beats — the ie is a single glide, so it is not "see-EH-teh".

SYEH-teh in two beats — the ie is a single glide, so it is not "see-EH-teh".

siete /ˈsje.te/

Two syllables, SIE-te, weight on the first. Ending in a vowel puts it under the default rule with nothing to write. Compare "setenta" (seventy), which grows a syllable and shifts the beat to se-TEN-ta — still second-to-last, still unmarked.

Listen: siete

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Sound it out

sie A hissing s, then the i glides straight into the e: "syeh", one beat. The i acts as a consonant-like y here, exactly as in English "yes", not as a separate vowel.

te A dental, unaspirated t — tongue tip on the upper teeth, no puff — plus the short "eh" of "bed". Unstressed, but the vowel keeps its full colour.

Hear it in a sentence

Trabajo siete horas al día.

I work seven hours a day.

Listen: Trabajo siete horas al día.

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"Trabajo siete horas al día" hides two useful things. The j in "trabajo" is a throaty sound made at the back of the mouth, like the ch in Scottish "loch" — nothing like an English j. And "horas" begins with a silent h, so "siete horas" runs straight together as SYEH-teh-O-ras. "Día" carries an accent that breaks the i and a apart, DEE-ah, the opposite of what ie does inside "siete".

Where English speakers slip

The three-syllable version, "see-EH-teh", is by far the most common wrong reading, and it comes from treating i as a full vowel. Squeeze it into a glide and the word snaps into shape. The other habit is aspirating the middle t, which gives the word a breathy English texture — Spanish t is dry and made further forward, right on the teeth.