Pronunciation · Words with fewer syllables than they look

How to pronounce “family”

FAM-lee

2 syllables · stress on “FAM”

FAMlee

Britishˈfæmli

Americanˈfæmli

In short

“family” is pronounced FAM-lee: 2 syllables, with the stress on “FAM”. The middle i is usually deleted, and even when it survives it is extremely weak. The stress never moves off the first syllable. The version to avoid is fa-MI-ly — stressing the middle syllable.

Say “family” in 3 steps

1Two syllables in normal speech: FAM-lee.
2Stress the first syllable and keep it there.
3A careful three-syllable FAM-uh-lee is acceptable; middle stress is not.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: fa-MI-ly — stressing the middle syllable

The middle i is usually deleted, and even when it survives it is extremely weak. The stress never moves off the first syllable.

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

2 human recordings

Actual people saying “family”, 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 Association Shtooka, Judith Franck and Dvortygirl, licensed under CC BY 3.0 us / 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.

ff as in fan æa as in cat mm as in man ll as in light iːee as in see

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.

comfortableKUMF-tuh-bul vegetableVEJ-tuh-bul chocolateCHOK-lut interestingIN-truh-sting temperatureTEM-pruh-chuh restaurantRES-tront

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce family?

family is pronounced FAM-lee, written /ˈfæmli/ in IPA. Two syllables in normal speech: FAM-lee.

How many syllables are in family?

two: FAM-lee. The stress falls on “FAM”.

What is the most common mistake with family?

fa-MI-ly — stressing the middle syllable. The middle i is usually deleted, and even when it survives it is extremely weak. The stress never moves off the first syllable.

The full sound library

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