How to Say MURDER American English Pronunciation
Today I’m here at a beautiful cemetery in
Georgia to teach you how to pronounce the
word ‘murder’.
The word ‘murder’ or ‘murderer’, is actually
one of the most requested words I get. Now,
I’m going to try not to read too much into
it. I’m going to assume that my audience isn’t
going around murdering people right and left.
It’s just that it’s a really hard word. And
that’s definitely true.
So, it’s a two-syllable word, murder, or,
a three-syllable word, murderer. In both cases,
stress is on the first syllable. So, it’s
DA-da. Or, DA-da-da. The first syllable begins
with the M consonant, that’s simple enough.
The lips come together: mur-. Then we pull
right into the UR as in HER, the R vowel sound.
Mur-. So, to make this sound, the lips will
flare a little bit, mur-, mur-. The tongue
is also moving. It’s pulling back some. Mur-,
ur-, ur-. So the tip isn’t actually touching
anything in the mouth. Now we have a D and
then the same sound, -er, only in an unstressed
syllable. So, to make the D, we’re just going
to quickly flap the tongue against the roof
of the mouth. Murrrr-d-errrr. You can hold
out the ‘er’ sound at the beginning and at
the end so that you can just isolate that
very quick movement of the tongue for the
D. Murder. So the second syllable here is
the same position as the first for the vowel,
but a little more relaxed because it’s in
an unstressed syllable. Murder. So my lips
will relax a little bit and the toungue might
not pull back quite as far. Murder.
Now, if we’re going to go with a three-syllable
word, murderer, we just need to reemphasize
that second syllable to make a third syllable.
So, I do this by lifting the tongue a little
higher, towards the roof of the mouth again,
sort of reemphasizing the ending R as a consonant.
Murderer. Pulling into a tighter position
and then relaxing again to make that third
syllable. Murderer, murderer. If you find
this especially difficult, try to slow it
down and break it down into its parts, murderer,
and see if that helps.
If there’s a word you find especially difficult
to pronounce, put it in the comments below.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.