Spanish · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "tener" in Spanish?

Q: How do you pronounce tener in Spanish?

tener is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /teˈneɾ/. It means “to have / to own.” teh-NEHR, stress on the second syllable, ending in a single flicked r.

teh-NEHR, stress on the second syllable, ending in a single flicked r.

tener /teˈneɾ/

Two syllables, te-NER, weight at the end because the word finishes in r. The interesting part is what happens when you conjugate it: the stress moves forward to the stem in "TEN-go" and "TIE-nes", stays in the middle for "te-NE-mos", and needs a written accent in the future "ten-DRÉ" to stay at the end. One verb, four different stress placements.

Listen: tener

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Sound it out

te A dental t with no puff of air, then a short "eh". Unstressed and quick, but the vowel keeps its shape.

ne A clean n and another short "eh", this one stressed. Both vowels in the word are identical in quality — only the weight differs.

r A single tap of the tongue tip against the ridge behind the upper teeth. It ends the word cleanly without colouring the vowel before it.

Hear it in a sentence

Tengo mucha hambre.

I'm very hungry.

Listen: Tengo mucha hambre.

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"Tengo mucha hambre" uses the conjugated form and shows Spanish expressing hunger as something you have rather than something you are. "Mucha" is feminine because "hambre" is a feminine noun, despite taking "el" in the singular for sound reasons. The h is silent, so "mucha hambre" runs as MOO-cha-AM-breh.

Where English speakers slip

The final r invites an English curl that bends the whole second syllable into "nurr". Keep the vowel clean and flick the tongue once at the very end. Beginners also front-stress it as "TEN-er" by analogy with English two-syllable verbs. The deeper trap is meaning: "tener" covers a wide range of states English handles with to be — hunger, thirst, age, fear, heat — so translating it as have alone will steer you wrong.