How to pronounce tricky English words

Short answer: the words people argue about most fall into two groups. Borrowed words like gyro, quinoa or croissant keep the spelling of another language, so English readers guess wrong. Others, like either, niche or aunt, have two accepted pronunciations, and American and British dictionaries put them in a different order. Each guide below gives you the pronunciation in plain letters and IPA, recordings of real speakers, the American and British versions where they differ, how the word sounds in its original language, and why people argue about it.

The words

Food and drink

Places and names

Everyday words

Why borrowed words are so hard to say

English keeps the spelling of a borrowed word but not its rules. The Italian gn in gnocchi is one sound, close to the ny in canyon; the Vietnamese ph in phở is an F; the Portuguese ç in açaí is an S. Without those rules, readers fall back on English habits and say "guh-NOCK-ee" or "a-KAI".

There's a second problem: for many of these words, English speakers have settled on more than one pronunciation. Dictionaries often list two or three, and usually none of them is exactly the original. That's why every guide shows both what English speakers say and how the word sounds in its own language, so you can choose.

Why one word can have two right pronunciations

Dictionaries record how educated speakers actually talk, and for many words that means more than one version. Often the split is between countries. American dictionaries list EE-ther first for either, and British ones list EYE-ther first. Niche is NITCH first in American dictionaries and NEESH in British ones, and lychee is LEE-chee in the US and LYE-chee in the UK.

Sometimes the split runs through one country. When the Harvard Dialect Survey asked Americans how they say pecan, caramel and aunt, the answers were split. And dictionaries accept February with or without the first R.

Each guide shows which dictionaries list which version, so you can pick the one that matches the English you speak and use it every time.

How each guide works

1. The short answer first: the pronunciation in plain letters and IPA.
2. Listen: recordings of real speakers, usually in English and in the original language.
3. Is it this or that? The versions you'll hear and which dictionaries accept.
4. Why it's pronounced that way: the language the word comes from and the spelling trap.
5. Say it step by step, then practice it in a sentence.

More pronunciation practice

• 60 hard words to pronounce: silent letters, the -ough trap, TH, R and L, with IPA and a printable list.
• 45 commonly mispronounced words: everyday words people get wrong, from espresso to Illinois.
• Types of English accents: how American, British, Australian and other accents differ.

Sources

• Merriam-Webster — online dictionary, pronunciations of the words in this section
• Cambridge Dictionary — online dictionary, UK and US pronunciations
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries — online dictionary, British and American pronunciations
• Harvard Dialect Survey — Bert Vaux and Scott Golder, 2003 (archived copy): how Americans say pecan, caramel, aunt and other words
• Wikimedia Commons — the recordings used on these pages; each clip links to its file page with the author and license