How to pronounce bicycle | American English

30 Sept 2017 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:48

Short YouTube clip (Hadar Shemesh) demonstrating American English pronunciation of the word “bicycle” during Yom Kippur in Israel. Speaker breaks the word into syllables and sounds: ‘bi’ (as in by), ‘si’ (as in sit, optionally reduced to a schwa), and ‘-cle’ pronounced like ‘coal’ with a dark /l/. The video includes a brief dialogue with someone named Amalia and a concluding sentence about wanting to ride a bicycle but not here.

Chapters

Hey, it's Hadar. And this is the accents way. And today is Yom Kippur in Israel, which means that there are no cars for 24 hours, which means there are lots of bicycles, which is a good opportunity to talk about how to pronounce the word bicycle. We start with bi, as in. By the way, you continue with si, as in sit, but you can also drop it to a schwabis. And the ending is coal. Coal with a dark l at the end. Coal. Amalia, say cole. Very good bicycle. I want to ride my bicycle, but not here, because I can't.