Pronunciation · Words with fewer syllables than they look

How to pronounce “interesting”

IN-truh-sting

3 syllables · stress on “IN”

INtruhsting

Britishˈɪntrəstɪŋ

Americanˈɪntrəstɪŋ

In short

“interesting” is pronounced IN-truh-sting: 3 syllables, with the stress on “IN”. This is one of the most frequent words in spoken exam English, and one of the most frequently over-syllabified. The stress belongs firmly on the first syllable. The version to avoid is in-ter-EST-ing — four syllables with the stress in the middle.

Say “interesting” in 3 steps

1Three syllables: IN-truh-sting.
2Stress the very first syllable. Nothing later in the word is stressed.
3The -ter- collapses into a single quick /trə/.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: in-ter-EST-ing — four syllables with the stress in the middle

This is one of the most frequent words in spoken exam English, and one of the most frequently over-syllabified. The stress belongs firmly on 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 “interesting”, 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 Dvortygirl, 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.

ɪi as in sit nn as in no tt as in tea rr as in red əa as in about (schwa)ss as in see ŋng as in sing

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.

Spanish speakers: Spanish has 5 pure vowels where English has around 20, so the highest-impact work for Spanish speakers is vowel contrasts (ship/sheep, cat/cut) plus the b/v merger and the extra 'e' that sneaks in before s-clusters (eSpain).
Portuguese speakers: For Portuguese speakers (especially Brazilian), the top fixes are: final l turning into w ('milk' → 'miwk'), t/d softening to ch/j before i ('tea' → 'chee'), the helper -i after final stops ('big' → 'bigi'), and initial r becoming h ('red' → 'head').
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.
Turkish speakers: Turkish speakers most often need: the w/v separation (Turkish has one in-between sound), re-voicing final consonants ('bed' → 'bet'), the æ/e split ('bad'/'bed'), and dropping the helper vowel from initial clusters ('sport' → 'siport').
Vietnamese speakers: For Vietnamese speakers one issue towers over all others: final consonants.

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 temperatureTEM-pruh-chuh restaurantRES-tront businessBIZ-nus

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce interesting?

interesting is pronounced IN-truh-sting, written /ˈɪntrəstɪŋ/ in IPA. Three syllables: IN-truh-sting.

How many syllables are in interesting?

three: IN-truh-sting. The stress falls on “IN”.

What is the most common mistake with interesting?

in-ter-EST-ing — four syllables with the stress in the middle. This is one of the most frequent words in spoken exam English, and one of the most frequently over-syllabified. The stress belongs firmly on the first syllable.

The full sound library

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