How to pronounce 'opportunity' | American English

16 Feb 2016 · 2 min

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2:17

This YouTube video (hosted by Hadar Shemesh) teaches the American-English pronunciation of the single word "opportunity." The host greets viewers, states the request (from Farhan), then gives a step-by-step phonetic breakdown: initial "ah" (as in "father"), "per" with a P→R shift, the primary stressed syllable "two" with a strong T and long "oo" quality, followed by an "n" + schwa and the final "t"/"th"-like sound; she also highlights prosody (pitch rise on the stressed syllable) and offers listening/production tips. The video closes with a call-to-action to subscribe and share.

Chapters

Hi, it's Hadar. And this is the accent's way, your way to finding clarity, confidence and freedom in English. Farhan asked me to make a video on the word opportunity. So I figured, hey, it's a great opportunity to talk about the word opportunity, right? Okay, let's just start. We begin with the ah as in father vowel sound. Ah. Relax your lips, drop your jaw, relax your tongue and pull it back a bit. Make sure it's flat. Ah. It's not opportunity, although it's spelled with an O. No, think about it like it has two A, A's. Ah, ah, Opportunity. Then we shift to per. Per as in perfect or person. It's a p and then shifting to an R directly. Purr, purr, purr. Then the primary stress is 2. Two, like the word 2, the number 2. It's a strong T sound and a long OO. Think like you're adding a small w at the end. 2. It's not tunity, it's 2. 2, then n. N. An n sound. Lift the tongue up for the N. N. It's a nasal sound and a schwa. Nuh, nuh, nuh. And then the. And D. The T is flat. Opertoo. NRI Listen to the music of the word as well. Opertu. I go higher in pitch for the primary stress. Opportunity. Opportunity. That's it. Thank you for watching. Please share this video with your friends. If you dig it, come on over to my website to subscribe and get more great content every single week. And that's it. I will see you next week in the next video. Thank you for watching. Bye. So although it's spelled with an o. And today, and I also kind of like use my voice to. Okay.