Communication Solutions for Global Business

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

  4. Heather Hansen

    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

  11. Heather Hansen

    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.

  12. Heather Hansen

    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!

  14. BMReviews

    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.

  16. un2mensch

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

  27. MomoTheBellyDancer

    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.

  35. DDAlex07

    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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