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    Pronunciation · Words with silent letters

    How to pronounce “salmon”

    SAM-un

    2 syllables · stress on “SAM”

    SAMun
    Britishˈsæmən
    Americanˈsæmən

    In short

    “salmon” is pronounced SAM-un: 2 syllables, with the stress on “SAM”. The l came from Latin salmo when scribes respelled the French saumon. The sound never returned. The second syllable is also a weak schwa, not a full “mon”. The version to avoid is SAL-mon — sounding the l.

    Say “salmon” in 3 steps

    1. 1The l is silent: SAM-un, as if it were spelled “sammon”.
    2. 2The first vowel is the /æ/ of “cat”.
    3. 3The second syllable is unstressed and reduces to a schwa — never “MON”.

    The version to avoid

    Commonly said as: SAL-mon — sounding the l

    The l came from Latin salmo when scribes respelled the French saumon. The sound never returned. The second syllable is also a weak schwa, not a full “mon”.

    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 “salmon”, 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

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    Say it yourself

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    Three speakers per accent

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    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.

    ss as in seeæa as in catmm as in manəa as in about (schwa)nn as in no

    Don't confuse it with…

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

    More words with silent letters

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

    WednesdayWENZ-daysubtleSUT-ulreceiptrih-SEETislandEYE-lunddebtDETpsychologysy-KOL-uh-jee

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    Frequently asked questions

    How do you pronounce salmon?
    salmon is pronounced SAM-un, written /ˈsæmən/ in IPA. The l is silent: SAM-un, as if it were spelled “sammon”.
    How many syllables are in salmon?
    two: SAM-un. The stress falls on “SAM”.
    What is the most common mistake with salmon?
    SAL-mon — sounding the l. The l came from Latin salmo when scribes respelled the French saumon. The sound never returned. The second syllable is also a weak schwa, not a full “mon”.

    The full sound library

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