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    Pronunciation · Words with silent letters

    How to pronounce “sword”

    SORD

    1 syllable · stress on “SORD”

    SORD
    Britishsɔːd
    Americansɔːrd

    In short

    “sword” is pronounced SORD: 1 syllable, with the stress on the only syllable. The w disappeared from speech after the s but stayed in the spelling. The word now sounds identical to “soared” in British English. The version to avoid is SWORD — sounding the w.

    Say “sword” in 3 steps

    1. 1The w is silent: SORD.
    2. 2One syllable, with the long /ɔː/ of “more”.
    3. 3Two and answer follow the same silent-w pattern.

    The version to avoid

    Commonly said as: SWORD — sounding the w

    The w disappeared from speech after the s but stayed in the spelling. The word now sounds identical to “soared” in British English.

    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 “sword”, 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.

    ss as in seeɔːaw as in lawdd as in day

    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-SEETsalmonSAM-unislandEYE-lunddebtDET

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    Frequently asked questions

    How do you pronounce sword?
    sword is pronounced SORD, written /sɔːd/ in IPA. The w is silent: SORD.
    How many syllables are in sword?
    one: SORD. The stress falls on “SORD”.
    What is the most common mistake with sword?
    SWORD — sounding the w. The w disappeared from speech after the s but stayed in the spelling. The word now sounds identical to “soared” in British English.

    The full sound library

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