A short podcast episode (How to Pronounce Friday) hosted by Hadar Shemesh that teaches listeners how to pronounce the word “entrepreneur.” The episode breaks the word into syllables and sounds, explains schwas, gives two acceptable final-syllable options, demonstrates primary and secondary stress/intonation patterns, and ends with a subscription call-to-action.
Welcome to the Influency Podcast. I'm Hadar, and this is how to Pronounce Friday, where we take a confusing word or word pair. We learn how to pronounce it and how to use it with confidence. Let's get started.
Today we're going to discuss the word entrepreneur. Now, I know that probably a lot of you watching this are entrepreneurs, so let's figure out once and for all how to pronounce this word. And when you introduce yourself, you'll proudly say, I'm an entrepreneur. Yes. Okay, so actually, this word is complicated because of the spelling, and it's a long word. Now, this word originates in French, and therefore you can find there's French spelling patterns, but the sounds are still American, so they don't really correspond. Now, I think I've mentioned that before that spelling and pronunciation do not correspond in English. So in order to learn how to practice this word, we're going to disregard the spelling completely and just go over it sound by sound and syllable by syllable. So the first syllable in this word, the word entrepreneur, is the syllable, the sound. Ah. On.
On.
Think about it as the word on. Turn it on, or think of it as a n or aan. On. Okay. Definitely not an E. It's not an E sound. Okay. On. Then you have two quick syllables. Tr. They sound the same, right? They kind of rhyme. Tr. If you remember, these are the schwas. Entrepr. Entrepr. The last syllable. Here you have two options, either ner, as in nerd or nervous. And the other option is noir. That rhymes with poor. We're going to practice today the first option, because it's a little easier to pronounce, and it doesn't matter which one you use, actually. So going to try the ner. So practice it with me. Ner. Nir. So you see that from the N, I shift directly to the R, my tongue pulls back to the R, my lips round as I pronounce the N. Ner. Getting ready for the R. Nur. Okay, so there is actually no vowel between the N and the R. Ner. So let's start again on trupra. Okay, so basically, these are four pretty simple syllables to pronounce. Now that we've established the sounds, the pronunciation of this word, let's figure out the intonation, the music, the stress, where the stress falls. So first of all, the primary stress of this word is at the end. Ner Entrepreneur. That means, if you remember, the stress is higher. Okay. The pitch is higher. It's a little longer. The syllable is a little longer and it's louder. There is a secondary stress at the beginning on then in the middle we have two weak stresses. So actually the music is something like ta da da da da da da da. Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur. Okay, so when you think about it, that's not a difficult word to pronounce. If you disregard the spelling and think of it like entrepreneur. And then you can proudly say, I'm an entrepreneur.
Okay, that was your how to Pronounce Friday episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you like the podcast, then consider subscribing to the podcast. And if you feel really crazy, you can even rate and review the podcast. And you can find me at Hadar Accentsway on Instagram where you can DM me and ask for all the crazy, fancy, confusing words that you like to know how to pronounce. Have a beautiful day and I'll see you next time.
