Home Programs Resources Credentials About Contact Blog

Center for Confident American English Communication

At ConfidentVoice, we know that confident communication is the key to career success. Our accent reduction training helps international professionals to reduce their accents so that they can speak clearly and effectively in the workplace. Since 2007, our online courses have served over 7,000 students from across the globe.

Mini Lesson

Words with Dropped Syllables

In many common 3-syllable words, the second syllable is dropped in spoken American English. Most American speakers do not pronounce these syllables when they speak.

Read the words in the chart below and drop the syllable as indicated in the second column. If you can remember to drop these syllables when you speak, your speech will sound much more natural.

Practice saying these words aloud, then click below to hear the correct pronunciation.

Word	Dropped syllable
aspirin	as-prin
average	av-rage
Barbara	Bar-bra
business	bus-ness
camera	cam-ra
different	dif-rent
evening	eve-ning
every	ev-ry
family	fam-ly
favorite	fav-rite
federal	fed-ral
general	gen-ral
interest	in-trest
Margaret	Mar-gret

Click 'Play' to hear the correct pronunciation:

Privacy Statement Terms of Use Contact Site Map