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Pronunciation · Famously mispronounced words

How to pronounce “facade”

fuh-SAHD

2 syllables · stress on “SAHD”

fuhSAHD
Britishfəˈsɑːd
Americanfəˈsɑːd

In short

“facade” is pronounced fuh-SAHD: 2 syllables, with the stress on “SAHD”. The original spelling façade carries a cedilla that tells you the c is soft. English usually drops the cedilla, removing the only clue that the c is an /s/ sound. The version to avoid is fuh-KAYD — reading the c as /k/.

Say “facade” in 3 steps

  1. 1The c is an s sound, not a k: fuh-SAHD.
  2. 2The a in the stressed syllable is long and open, as in “father”.
  3. 3Stress the second syllable.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: fuh-KAYD — reading the c as /k/

The original spelling façade carries a cedilla that tells you the c is soft. English usually drops the cedilla, removing the only clue that the c is an /s/ 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 “facade”, 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 Master Conjurer, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Full credits.

Practise it out loud

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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.

ff as in fanəa as in about (schwa)ss as in seeɑːar as in cardd as in day

More famously mispronounced words

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

epitomeih-PIT-uh-meehyperbolehy-PUR-buh-leecolonelKUR-nulawryuh-RYsegueSEG-waycacheKASH

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Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce facade?
facade is pronounced fuh-SAHD, written /fəˈsɑːd/ in IPA. The c is an s sound, not a k: fuh-SAHD.
How many syllables are in facade?
two: fuh-SAHD. The stress falls on “SAHD”.
What is the most common mistake with facade?
fuh-KAYD — reading the c as /k/. The original spelling façade carries a cedilla that tells you the c is soft. English usually drops the cedilla, removing the only clue that the c is an /s/ sound.

The full sound library

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