How to pronounce Woman vs. Women

8 Mar 2023 · 1 min

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Short pronunciation tutorial by Hadar Shemesh explaining how to pronounce the singular noun "woman" versus the plural "women." The speaker contrasts the vowel sounds: singular uses the vowel as in "cook" (schwa-like, primary stress on first syllable), while plural uses a short /ɪ/-like vowel (as in "wicked"); consonant sequence (w‑/m‑schwa‑n) is otherwise the same.

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How to pronounce woman versus Women. For the singular form a woman, you start with a w sound. W. Then the as in Cook look book. It's not an ooh sound, not woman. No big deal if you pronounce it this way. But if you want to get fancier, drop your jaw a little bit around your lips, not too much, and make it super short and relaxed. Then we have an m sound, a schwa, and an N. The primary stress is on the first syllable, woman, woman. For the plural form, we put an e sound instead of the so we we we as in the word wicked. Women. The second part is absolutely the same. An m, a schwa sound and an n. Woman, women, woman, women.