SpeakMetry
Start free

Pronunciation · Academic and IELTS words

How to pronounce “entrepreneur”

on-truh-pruh-NUR

4 syllables · stress on “NUR”

ontruhpruhNUR
Britishˌɒntrəprəˈnɜː
Americanˌɑːntrəprəˈnɜːr

In short

“entrepreneur” is pronounced on-truh-pruh-NUR: 4 syllables, with the stress on “NUR”. It is French, so the stress falls at the end rather than the beginning, which is unusual for a long English noun. Three weak syllables have to be produced before the stressed one arrives. The version to avoid is en-truh-pruh-NOOR or ON-truh-pruh-nur — wrong first vowel, or stress on the front.

Say “entrepreneur” in 3 steps

  1. 1Stress the final syllable: on-truh-pruh-NUR.
  2. 2Keep the first three syllables short and weak — they are a runway, not the destination.
  3. 3The ending is the /ɜː/ of “her”, not “-noor”.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: en-truh-pruh-NOOR or ON-truh-pruh-nur — wrong first vowel, or stress on the front

It is French, so the stress falls at the end rather than the beginning, which is unusual for a long English noun. Three weak syllables have to be produced before the stressed one arrives.

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 “entrepreneur”, 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 DroEsperanto, 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.

ɒo as in hotnn as in nott as in tearr as in redəa as in about (schwa)pp as in penɜːer as in bird

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.

  • Mandarin speakers: Mandarin syllables end only in n or ng, so the single biggest win for Mandarin speakers is final consonants: keeping the ends of words alive, including the -s and -ed that carry English grammar.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Korean speakers: Korean speakers' highest-impact fixes are /f/→/p/ ('coffee' → 'copi'), /z/→/dʒ/ ('zoo' → 'joo'), the r/l alternation, and the helper vowel that sneaks in after final consonants ('finish' → 'finishi').

More academic and ielts words

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

questionnairekwes-chuh-NAIRenvironmentin-VY-run-muntphenomenonfuh-NOM-ih-nunhierarchyHY-uh-rar-keegenreZHON-ruhhypothesishy-POTH-uh-sis

Keep exploring

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce entrepreneur?
entrepreneur is pronounced on-truh-pruh-NUR, written /ˌɒntrəprəˈnɜː/ in IPA. Stress the final syllable: on-truh-pruh-NUR.
How many syllables are in entrepreneur?
four: on-truh-pruh-NUR. The stress falls on “NUR”.
What is the most common mistake with entrepreneur?
en-truh-pruh-NOOR or ON-truh-pruh-nur — wrong first vowel, or stress on the front. It is French, so the stress falls at the end rather than the beginning, which is unusual for a long English noun. Three weak syllables have to be produced before the stressed one arrives.

The full sound library

Next step

Find every word you're getting wrong

SpeakMetry's Pronunciation Coach scores your speech on the features IELTS examiners assess — individual sounds, word and sentence stress, intonation and rhythm — and builds a plan from your weakest sounds. Free to start.

Try the Pronunciation Coach free