Uploaded February 2012 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago

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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.

Please visit englishpronunciationcourse.com to sign up for my free, 8-part Pronunciation Short Course.