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Pronunciation · Words with fewer syllables than they look

How to pronounce “comfortable”

KUMF-tuh-bul

3 syllables · stress on “KUMF”

KUMFtuhbul
Britishˈkʌmftəbl
Americanˈkʌmfərtəbl

In short

“comfortable” is pronounced KUMF-tuh-bul: 3 syllables, with the stress on “KUMF”. The word contains “comfort”, so learners build it as comfort + able and keep the stress where comfort has it. Fluent speech deletes the vowel after the f entirely and pulls the stress to the front. The version to avoid is kom-FOR-tuh-bul — four syllables with the stress in the middle.

Say “comfortable” in 3 steps

  1. 1Three syllables, not four: KUMF-tuh-bul.
  2. 2Stress the first syllable hard, then let the rest fall away quickly.
  3. 3Delete the o after the f. There is no “for” in the middle of this word.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: kom-FOR-tuh-bul — four syllables with the stress in the middle

The word contains “comfort”, so learners build it as comfort + able and keep the stress where comfort has it. Fluent speech deletes the vowel after the f entirely and pulls the stress to the front.

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 “comfortable”, 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.

British vs American

American English often keeps a light r: KUMF-ter-tuh-bul. British English typically drops straight to KUMF-tuh-bul.

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 keyʌu as in cupmm as in manff as in fantt as in teaəa as in about (schwa)bb as in bedll as in light

Who finds this word hardest

Your first language predicts which part of a word will break. These guides list the highest-impact fixes for each.

  • Spanish speakers: Spanish has 5 pure vowels where English has around 20, so the highest-impact work for Spanish speakers is vowel contrasts (ship/sheep, cat/cut) plus the b/v merger and the extra 'e' that sneaks in before s-clusters (eSpain).
  • Hindi speakers: Hindi speakers' single highest-impact fix is the v/w merger: Hindi has one sound (व) where English has two, so 'wine' and 'vine' collapse.
  • Bengali speakers: For Bengali speakers the big three are: /f/ and /v/ hardening into aspirated p and b, /z/ turning into /dʒ/ ('zoo' → 'joo'), and s/sh swapping, plus an extra vowel breaking up consonant clusters (school → ischool).
  • Arabic speakers: The signature fix for Arabic speakers is /p/: Arabic has no p, so 'pen' becomes 'ben' and 'park' becomes 'bark'.
  • Vietnamese speakers: For Vietnamese speakers one issue towers over all others: final consonants.

More words with fewer syllables than they look

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

vegetableVEJ-tuh-bulchocolateCHOK-lutinterestingIN-truh-stingtemperatureTEM-pruh-chuhrestaurantRES-trontbusinessBIZ-nus

Keep exploring

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce comfortable?
comfortable is pronounced KUMF-tuh-bul, written /ˈkʌmftəbl/ in IPA. Three syllables, not four: KUMF-tuh-bul.
How many syllables are in comfortable?
three: KUMF-tuh-bul. The stress falls on “KUMF”.
What is the most common mistake with comfortable?
kom-FOR-tuh-bul — four syllables with the stress in the middle. The word contains “comfort”, so learners build it as comfort + able and keep the stress where comfort has it. Fluent speech deletes the vowel after the f entirely and pulls the stress to the front.
Is comfortable pronounced differently in British and American English?
American English often keeps a light r: KUMF-ter-tuh-bul. British English typically drops straight to KUMF-tuh-bul. IELTS accepts either accent, so choose one model and stay consistent.
How many syllables does comfortable have?
Three in natural speech: KUMF-tuh-bul. The spelling suggests four, but the vowel after the f is deleted by fluent speakers.

The full sound library

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