Hear Native Speakers Pronounce This Foreign Word You Cannot Make Out
Learning a language with an app like Duolingo is respectable, but if you don’t want your French to have a noticeable Siri-like quality, you need to expand. This is where sites like Forvo come in.
In an effort to someday “pronounce all the words in the world,” Forvo relies on users to record the correct pronunciation of words that other users are asking for. So you can, for example, check the pronunciations in different cities , and if you can’t find a city you are not sure how to pronounce, just go to the add word page and enter the query for the word you want. …
The nice thing about Forvo is that next to each entry there is a little information about who wrote it, for example about their gender and country. It adds a nice human touch, but also adds the necessary context about how words sound with different accents. (I found the coronavirus pronunciation guide particularly interesting.)
We first wrote about Forvo in 2008, but a recent post on Reddit reminded us of its usefulness. As several commentators point out, the site is far from perfect , but it’s a great way to double-check Duolingo and find out if its computer voice says “cacahuete” to the right, or if it’s actually supposed to send a chill down your spine.
Forvo stumbles a bit with homographs such as “recording”, which are pronounced “wreck-urd” and “ree-cord” in English. Such words are usually spoken in both directions by the speaker, but I can see how confusing it can be without additional context. In other words, Forvo doesn’t have to be your only place to pronounce, but it is a useful way to figure out how to make a new word feel comfortable in your mouth without sacrificing accuracy.
This article was originally published in 2008 and has been completely updated to reflect current Lifehacker style guidelines.