How To Pronounce TORTOISE - A Quick Fix By Heather Hansen

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How to Pronounce TORTOISE – A Quick Fix by Heather Hansen

Hi, I’m Heather Hansen, Clear Speech Specialist at English Pronunciation Lab and I’m back again with your Pronunciation Quick Fix.

This is the segment where I help you clearly pronounce a commonly mispronounced word in under 60 seconds. Today’s word is a special one because it comes from a Facebook friend and colleague of mine. He wanted to know how to pronounce today’s word:

Tortoise

Tortoise, Tortoise. 2 syllables, word stress on the first syllable TOR.

Notice that the word is not pronounced the way you would expect with its spelling. We’re used to seeing words like ‘noise’, ‘poise’ and ‘turquoise’, but this word is not pronounced according to this pattern. Instead, we say TOR – tuhs. This is due to vowel reduction on the second, unstressed syllable.

There is another animal with this same spelling pattern and is also pronounced the same way: porpoise! Let’s use these two words in a sentence:

My daughter wants a pet tortoise. We went to the zoo and saw a tortoise and a porpoise. Did you know tortoises can live up to 170 years??

There you have it. Tortoise (and porpoise!) in under 60 seconds.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. would certainly come in handy when reading esio trot!

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  2. Thank you Heather!

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  3. So is it Tor-Tus, or Tor-Tis? Still can’t hear.

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  4. Hi Swizzy The vowel at the end is a “schwa” which is an unstressed filler vowel that sounds a bit like ‘uh’. Tor-tuhs would be the closest pronunciation, although I don’t think anyone would hear the difference if you said Tor-tis. 🙂 Heather

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  5. I keep mispronouncing words because I picture the way it’s written when I say it. What a frustrating language 😛

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  6. I know!!! Horrible!

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  7. You’re very welcome!

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  8. Thanks!

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  9. Thanks great for esl students

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  10. Yup. Which is precisely why I’m here ( teaching it to esl speakers too).

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  11. Hi Joel! Thanks so much for your comment! It’s true that there are many differences between US and UK pronunciation. That said, I have to stand by the pronunciation here. I ALWAYS reconfirm pronunciations before making videos and if there are acceptable secondary pronunciations, I will mention them. Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary 16thEd. does not list ‘tor-toys’ as an acceptable option. The only difference is the dropped R in UK English. ‘Tor-toys’ is a regional pronunciation not a global one.

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  12. Continued… 🙂 The idea of the more ‘correct’ pronunciation is an interesting one, because anyone from a region that says ‘tor-toys’ would of course believe that is the ‘correct’ pronunciation because that’s how everyone says it there!

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  13. Haha! Glad this video can help! I haven’t read the book, but love Roald Dahl! I’m sure it’s great!

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  14. Wow. I could bet a finger that the right pronunciation was like “noise”. The example with “porpoise” was excellent. Thanks for your videos, they’re really helpful! Really hope to see the next videos with tons of views! 🙂 Thanks from Brazil.

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  15. i pronounce it like in french, tor-TWAHZ, and for turquoise, tur-KWAHZ!

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  16. Untrue. In South Africa, Australia, and especially middle class British people pronounce it with the reduction. Source: I have lived in these places.

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  17. can you do a video on the word “crayon” please? I always say “crown” because “cray-on” or “cr owwww n” sound funny. Thank you!

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  18. beat that Ansari Merican !!!!!!!! TOLD YOU SO

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  19. isn’t it just cray-on? *confused*

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  20. Hi teacher, how to pronounce the word ‘squirrel’ correctly? Thank you

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  21. gonna have to agree with Joel here, I’m from the UK and I never heard anyone pronounce it like you do in this video until I came to America.

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  22. english is a funny language 😛

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  23. Thank you…. I even thought it was tor-tuah.

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  24. Теперь ты будешь знать, как произносить TortoiseSVN 🙂

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  25. Thanks a lot. I may need to use the word in a phone job interview, since the CEO likes the story between the turtoise and the hare.

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  26. Shwiggity-shwiggty-swaaa.

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  27. I always get into fights at work, where we use software called Tortoise. For your information, I live in The Netherlands, where most people speak Dutch. I pronounce Tortoise the proper way, whereas most of my colleagues pronounce it something like “Tor-twa-suh”, which sounds more French. I refuse to budge though, since it’s a proper English word, with a proper pronunciation and meaning.

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  28. Ive always said it like tor – toys is that wrong? (im English btw)

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  29. This video makes utterly no sense

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    • +Max Rookyard it's like a minutes too long

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  30. Fuck me for 30 years I have been saying TOR – TOISE and not Tor-Tuhs….

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  31. I Pronounce it as it is spelled! Hail to that!!!!

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  32. tordus

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  33. porbus

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  34. It’s taw-tis, not torr-des.

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  35. haha I ran into the [same] issue today. I never use Tortoisegit ( I use the console) but the front end and designers don't like the console and I was trying to introduce Tortoisegit but I failed to pronounce it properly….

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