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Pronunciation · Word lists

English pronunciation word lists

In short

117 hard English words, grouped by WHY they are hard rather than alphabetically. Each list teaches one pattern — a silent letter rule, a deleted syllable, a stress shift, a borrowed spelling convention — so fixing the group is far faster than fixing the words.

The eight lists

Famously mispronounced words12 words

When a word looks like it should rhyme with something familiar, check it — that instinct is what created the error.

epitome · hyperbole · colonel · awry · segue

Words with fewer syllables than they look15 words

If you can hear a vowel that fluent speakers delete, you are adding a syllable. Count the beats, not the letters.

comfortable · vegetable · chocolate · interesting · temperature

Words with silent letters16 words

Learn the pattern, not the word: -mb drops the b, -mn drops the n, -stle drops the t, ps- drops the p.

Wednesday · subtle · receipt · salmon · island

Words that change with stress15 words

Nouns take first-syllable stress; verbs take second-syllable stress. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa.

present · record · object · subject · project

Everyday words people get wrong16 words

Frequency decides impact. A mispronounced everyday word costs far more clarity than a mispronounced rare one.

clothes · months · sixth · asked · February

Academic and IELTS words16 words

The suffix usually decides the stress: -ity, -ical and -ion pull stress onto the syllable immediately before them.

entrepreneur · questionnaire · environment · phenomenon · hierarchy

Food and drink words15 words

Read the source language, not English: Italian ch is /k/ and sci is /ʃ/; Spanish j is /h/ and ñ is /nj/; French oi is /wa/.

croissant · quinoa · gnocchi · bruschetta · espresso

British place names12 words

Unstressed English place-name endings collapse. Assume less, not more, than the spelling shows.

Worcestershire · Leicester · Gloucester · Edinburgh · Thames

Frequently asked questions

Why group hard words into lists instead of learning them one by one?
Because the words in each group fail for the same reason. Learn that -mb drops the b and you have fixed thumb, comb, lamb, climb and plumber at once. Learning them individually means relearning the same rule five times.
Which list should I start with?
Start with the everyday words and the syllable traps. Both are high-frequency, which means the errors show up constantly in real speech. Borrowed menu words and place names are useful but rare, so they are polish rather than priority.
Are these British or American pronunciations?
Both. Every word page gives IPA and audio for British and American English, and flags the words where the two genuinely diverge, such as schedule, garage, laboratory and niche. IELTS accepts either accent.

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Next step

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