How to Pronounce ‘Colleague’

VIDEO BLOG!
Colleague is another one of the top 10 words I commonly hear mispronounced in Asia. It tends to sound more like ‘colic’, but with the word stress on the second syllable instead of the first.

If you prefer audio only, here’s another recording. Click the play button (it may take a few seconds to load).

Colleague should be stressed on the first syllable, COL and the second syllable, LEAGUE, should sound the same as the normal word ‘league’ with a long E sound and a G ending.

You’ll notice that this goes against the typical word stress characteristic (see Part 6 of the free course) that says stressed syllables normally have a pure vowel sound while unstressed syllables are often reduced. We see no reduction in this case and the unstressed syllable remains a pure long E.

This is partly due to the fact that ‘colleague’ has a voiced G ending which forces us to lengthen the E sound so we can better pronounce the G. See Part 3 of the free course for further discussion of voiced consonant sounds.

If you’re really having trouble with this one, how about using ‘co-worker’ instead? 🙂

What other words do you have trouble pronouncing? Post them in the comments or send me a message through the contact page and I’ll highlight them in the “How to Pronounce” section.