How to Pronounce VACATION American English
In this American English pronunciation video,
we’re going to go over the pronunciation of
the word ‘vacation’.
This week’s word of the week is ‘vacation’.
Vacation. It’s a three-syllable word with
stress on the middle syllable. Va-ca-tion.
Vacation. It begins with the V consonant sound,
where the bottom lip comes up and touches
the bottom of the top front teeth, vv, vv.
Then it has the AY as in SAY diphthong. The
jaw does need to drop for that first sound
of the diphthong, va-, va-. Then we have the
K consonant sound, where the back part of
the tongue will reach up here, kk, touch the
soft palate and pull away to make the K sound.
The stressed syllable also has the AY as in
SAY diphthong. Since this syllable is stressed,
the jaw will probably drop a little bit more
than it did in the unstressed syllable. Vaca-,
-ca-. Vacation. The last syllable is the SH,
schwa, N sound: -tion, -tion, -tion. You don’t
need to worry about making the schwa. The
N sort of takes over that sound, -tion, -tion.
Since it’s unstressed, we do want it to be
very fast. And, it will be lower in pitch
and flatter than -ca-, the stressed syllable.
Vacation, vacation.
Here’s a video from my summer vacation.
That’s it, your Word of the Week. Try it
out yourself. Make up a sentence with the
word, record it, and post it as a video response
to this video on YouTube. I can’t wait to
watch it.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.