Pronunciation · Famously mispronounced words

How to pronounce “colonel”

KUR-nul

2 syllables · stress on “KUR”

KURnul

Britishˈkɜːnl

Americanˈkɜːrnl

In short

“colonel” is pronounced KUR-nul: 2 syllables, with the stress on “KUR”. English borrowed the word twice: the spelling from French colonel, the pronunciation from the Italian-influenced form coronel. The spelling never caught up, so the written l is pronounced as an r sound. The version to avoid is CO-lo-nel — three syllables, sounding every letter.

Say “colonel” in 3 steps

1Say the word “kernel” — the nut. That is the whole pronunciation.
2Two syllables only: KUR-nul. The first o and the second o are not sounded.
3The l in the middle is pronounced like an r.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: CO-lo-nel — three syllables, sounding every letter

English borrowed the word twice: the spelling from French colonel, the pronunciation from the Italian-influenced form coronel. The spelling never caught up, so the written l is pronounced as an r sound.

Hear real people say it

Model audio is consistent; real speech is not. Hearing several actual speakers is what makes a word recognisable when someone says it at full speed.

Real speakers

1 human recording

Actual people saying “colonel”, not a synthetic voice. Real speech varies — that variation is what you need to recognise, and what a single model voice cannot show you.

Recordings from Wikimedia Commons by Dvortygirl, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Full credits.

Practise it out loud

Reading about a sound does not change your mouth. Say it, hear it back, and fix one thing at a time.

Say it yourself

0/6 practised

Listen first, then record. You get feedback on the individual sounds, the stress and the rhythm — no account needed, and nothing is stored.

Three speakers per accent

Recordings are used only to generate this feedback and are not stored. Your accent is never penalised: IELTS scores intelligibility, and so do we.

The sounds inside this word

Each links to a full guide with mouth position, audio and drills. If a word keeps failing, the problem is usually one of these.

kk as in key ɜːer as in bird nn as in no ll as in light

More famously mispronounced words

Same pattern, same fix. Learning them as a group is far faster than one at a time.

epitomeih-PIT-uh-mee hyperbolehy-PUR-buh-lee awryuh-RY segueSEG-way cacheKASH facadefuh-SAHD

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce colonel?

colonel is pronounced KUR-nul, written /ˈkɜːnl/ in IPA. Say the word “kernel” — the nut. That is the whole pronunciation.

How many syllables are in colonel?

two: KUR-nul. The stress falls on “KUR”.

What is the most common mistake with colonel?

CO-lo-nel — three syllables, sounding every letter. English borrowed the word twice: the spelling from French colonel, the pronunciation from the Italian-influenced form coronel. The spelling never caught up, so the written l is pronounced as an r sound.

Why is colonel pronounced “kernel”?

English took the spelling from French colonel but the sound from an older Italian-influenced variant, coronel. The r pronunciation survived and the spelling did not change, leaving a word that looks nothing like it sounds.

The full sound library

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