Pronunciation · Words with silent letters

How to pronounce “rhythm”

RITH-um

2 syllables · stress on “RITH”

RITHum

Britishˈrɪðəm

Americanˈrɪðəm

In short

“rhythm” is pronounced RITH-um: 2 syllables, with the stress on “RITH”. The h after the r is silent, and the th is the voiced /ð/ of “this”, not the voiceless /θ/ of “think”. The word also has no written vowel in its second syllable. The version to avoid is RIT-hum or RY-thum — hardening the th, or sounding the h separately.

Say “rhythm” in 3 steps

1The h after r is silent. Start with a plain /r/.
2The th is voiced — vocal cords buzzing, as in “the”.
3The second syllable has no vowel in spelling but does in speech: a schwa before the m.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: RIT-hum or RY-thum — hardening the th, or sounding the h separately

The h after the r is silent, and the th is the voiced /ð/ of “this”, not the voiceless /θ/ of “think”. The word also has no written vowel in its second 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

1 human recording

Actual people saying “rhythm”, 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.

rr as in red ɪi as in sit ðth as in this əa as in about (schwa)mm as in man

Don't confuse it with…

Minimal pairs isolate the exact contrast this word depends on — the fastest way to train both ear and mouth.

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.

Japanese speakers: Japanese has one liquid sound where English has two (making l/r the canonical challenge) and its strict consonant-vowel syllables invite a helper vowel after English finals (strike → sutoraiku).
Korean speakers: Korean speakers' highest-impact fixes are /f/→/p/ ('coffee' → 'copi'), /z/→/dʒ/ ('zoo' → 'joo'), the r/l alternation, and the helper vowel that sneaks in after final consonants ('finish' → 'finishi').
French speakers: French speakers' most valuable fixes are the dropped (or hyper-corrected) h, the ch/sh softening ('chair' → 'share'), the ship/sheep vowel merger, and French final-syllable stress flattening English words.
Mandarin speakers: Mandarin syllables end only in n or ng, so the single biggest win for Mandarin speakers is final consonants: keeping the ends of words alive, including the -s and -ed that carry English grammar.

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 rhythm?

rhythm is pronounced RITH-um, written /ˈrɪðəm/ in IPA. The h after r is silent. Start with a plain /r/.

How many syllables are in rhythm?

two: RITH-um. The stress falls on “RITH”.

What is the most common mistake with rhythm?

RIT-hum or RY-thum — hardening the th, or sounding the h separately. The h after the r is silent, and the th is the voiced /ð/ of “this”, not the voiceless /θ/ of “think”. The word also has no written vowel in its second syllable.

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