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    Pronunciation · Everyday words people get wrong

    How to pronounce “often”

    OF-un

    2 syllables · stress on “OF”

    OFun
    Britishˈɒfən
    Americanˈɔːfən

    In short

    “often” is pronounced OF-un: 2 syllables, with the stress on “OF”. The t is silent for most speakers, but a spelling-influenced OF-ten has become common and is now listed in dictionaries. Both are acceptable; only the stress is fixed. The version to avoid is Neither form is wrong — but stressing the second syllable is.

    Say “often” in 3 steps

    1. 1Most common form: OF-un, with a silent t.
    2. 2OF-ten with a pronounced t is also standard now.
    3. 3Stress the first syllable either way.

    The version to avoid

    Commonly said as: Neither form is wrong — but stressing the second syllable is

    The t is silent for most speakers, but a spelling-influenced OF-ten has become common and is now listed in dictionaries. Both are acceptable; only the stress is fixed.

    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 “often”, 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.

    ɒo as in hotff as in fanəa as in about (schwa)nn as in no

    More everyday words people get wrong

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

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    Keep exploring

    Frequently asked questions

    How do you pronounce often?
    often is pronounced OF-un, written /ˈɒfən/ in IPA. Most common form: OF-un, with a silent t.
    How many syllables are in often?
    two: OF-un. The stress falls on “OF”.
    What is the most common mistake with often?
    Neither form is wrong — but stressing the second syllable is. The t is silent for most speakers, but a spelling-influenced OF-ten has become common and is now listed in dictionaries. Both are acceptable; only the stress is fixed.

    The full sound library

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