How to pronounce “Edinburgh”

ED-in-bruh

3 syllables · stress on “ED”

EDinbruh

Britishˈedɪnbrə

Americanˈedɪnbʌroʊ

In short

“Edinburgh” is pronounced ED-in-bruh: 3 syllables, with the stress on “ED”. The Scottish -burgh ending is a weak “bruh”, never “burg” or “borough”. Stress stays on the first syllable despite the word's length. The version to avoid is ed-in-BURG — treating -burgh as the German “burg”.

Say “Edinburgh” in 3 steps

1Three syllables: ED-in-bruh.
2The -burgh ending is a weak “bruh” — no hard g at all.
3Stress the first syllable.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: ed-in-BURG — treating -burgh as the German “burg”

The Scottish -burgh ending is a weak “bruh”, never “burg” or “borough”. Stress stays on the first syllable despite the word's length.

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 “Edinburgh”, 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 No machine-readable author provided. Tomhannen assumed (based on copyright claims)., licensed under Public domain. 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.

ee as in bed dd as in day ɪi as in sit nn as in no bb as in bed rr as in red əa as in about (schwa)

More british place names

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

WorcestershireWUUS-tuh-shuh LeicesterLES-tuh GloucesterGLOS-tuh ThamesTEMZ GreenwichGREN-ich NorwichNO-rij

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce Edinburgh?

Edinburgh is pronounced ED-in-bruh, written /ˈedɪnbrə/ in IPA. Three syllables: ED-in-bruh.

How many syllables are in Edinburgh?

three: ED-in-bruh. The stress falls on “ED”.

What is the most common mistake with Edinburgh?

ed-in-BURG — treating -burgh as the German “burg”. The Scottish -burgh ending is a weak “bruh”, never “burg” or “borough”. Stress stays on the first syllable despite the word's length.

The full sound library

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