Pronunciation · Words with silent letters

How to pronounce “debt”

DET

1 syllable · stress on “DET”

DET

Britishdet

Americandet

In short

“debt” is pronounced DET: 1 syllable, with the stress on the only syllable. Another Latin-inspired insertion, from debitum. The English word arrived from French dette with no b at all, and the sound never changed. The version to avoid is DEBT — sounding the b.

Say “debt” in 3 steps

1The b is silent. The word is a perfect homophone of nothing else — it is simply “det”.
2One syllable, short /e/ as in “bet”.
3Doubt and subtle follow the same silent-b rule.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: DEBT — sounding the b

Another Latin-inspired insertion, from debitum. The English word arrived from French dette with no b at all, and the sound never changed.

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 “debt”, 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.

dd as in day ee as in bed tt as in tea

More words with silent letters

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

WednesdayWENZ-day subtleSUT-ul receiptrih-SEET salmonSAM-un islandEYE-lund psychologysy-KOL-uh-jee

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce debt?

debt is pronounced DET, written /det/ in IPA. The b is silent. The word is a perfect homophone of nothing else — it is simply “det”.

How many syllables are in debt?

one: DET. The stress falls on “DET”.

What is the most common mistake with debt?

DEBT — sounding the b. Another Latin-inspired insertion, from debitum. The English word arrived from French dette with no b at all, and the sound never changed.

The full sound library

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