Pronunciation · Famously mispronounced words

How to pronounce “hegemony”

hih-GEM-uh-nee

4 syllables · stress on “GEM”

hihGEMuhnee

Britishhɪˈɡeməni

Americanhɪˈdʒeməni

In short

“hegemony” is pronounced hih-GEM-uh-nee: 4 syllables, with the stress on “GEM”. Four syllables with unstressed vowels either side of the stress, plus a g that can be hard or soft depending on the speaker. Academic writing uses it constantly and speech rarely does, so most people meet it on the page first. The version to avoid is HEDGE-uh-moh-nee — stressing the first syllable.

Say “hegemony” in 3 steps

1Stress the second syllable: hih-GEM-uh-nee.
2Reduce the first and third syllables to a weak schwa — do not give them full value.
3A hard g (GEM as in “get”) is the common British form; a soft g (JEM) is common in American English.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: HEDGE-uh-moh-nee — stressing the first syllable

Four syllables with unstressed vowels either side of the stress, plus a g that can be hard or soft depending on the speaker. Academic writing uses it constantly and speech rarely does, so most people meet it on the page first.

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 “hegemony”, 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 EncycloPetey, 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.

hh as in hat ɪi as in sit ɡg as in go ee as in bed mm as in man əa as in about (schwa)nn as in no iːee as in see

More famously mispronounced words

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

epitomeih-PIT-uh-mee hyperbolehy-PUR-buh-lee colonelKUR-nul awryuh-RY segueSEG-way cacheKASH

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce hegemony?

hegemony is pronounced hih-GEM-uh-nee, written /hɪˈɡeməni/ in IPA. Stress the second syllable: hih-GEM-uh-nee.

How many syllables are in hegemony?

four: hih-GEM-uh-nee. The stress falls on “GEM”.

What is the most common mistake with hegemony?

HEDGE-uh-moh-nee — stressing the first syllable. Four syllables with unstressed vowels either side of the stress, plus a g that can be hard or soft depending on the speaker. Academic writing uses it constantly and speech rarely does, so most people meet it on the page first.

The full sound library

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