Pronunciation · Words with silent letters

How to pronounce “queue”

KYOO

1 syllable · stress on “KYOO”

KYOO

Britishkjuː

Americankjuː

In short

“queue” is pronounced KYOO: 1 syllable, with the stress on the only syllable. Four of the five letters are silent. The word is pronounced exactly like the letter Q, and everything after that first sound is spelling history from French. The version to avoid is KWAY-oo or KYOO-ay — trying to sound the trailing vowels.

Say “queue” in 3 steps

1Say the letter Q. That is the entire word.
2One syllable: a /k/ followed by a /juː/ glide.
3The -ueue is completely silent.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: KWAY-oo or KYOO-ay — trying to sound the trailing vowels

Four of the five letters are silent. The word is pronounced exactly like the letter Q, and everything after that first sound is spelling history from French.

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 “queue”, 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 and Commander Keane, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 / CC BY-SA 4.0. 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.

kk as in key jy as in yes uːoo as in blue

More words with silent letters

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

WednesdayWENZ-day subtleSUT-ul receiptrih-SEET salmonSAM-un islandEYE-lund debtDET

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce queue?

queue is pronounced KYOO, written /kjuː/ in IPA. Say the letter Q. That is the entire word.

How many syllables are in queue?

one: KYOO. The stress falls on “KYOO”.

What is the most common mistake with queue?

KWAY-oo or KYOO-ay — trying to sound the trailing vowels. Four of the five letters are silent. The word is pronounced exactly like the letter Q, and everything after that first sound is spelling history from French.

The full sound library

Next step

Find every word you're getting wrong

SpeakMetry's Pronunciation Coach scores your speech on the features IELTS examiners assess — individual sounds, word and sentence stress, intonation and rhythm — and builds a plan from your weakest sounds. Free to start.

Try the Pronunciation Coach free