Slova
Aluminium is pronounced al-yuh-MIN-ee-um. It has five syllables with the stress on the third, MIN. This is the British word. Americans usually say and write aluminum, uh-LOO-mih-num, which has four syllables and the stress on LOO.
aluminium
noun · a light, silvery metal used for cans, foil and pans
IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. The recording is American English.
Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.
USUK American and British English/ˌæl.jəˈmɪn.i.əm/
al
yuh
MINstressed
ee
um
Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes aluminium, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.
Tip. Stress MIN, the third syllable. The i in MIN is short, as in sit.
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aluminium
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What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say al-yuh-MIN-ee-um.
Notuh-LOO-mih-nee-um
Putting the American stress on the British word. With the extra i, the stress moves to MIN.
Notal-oo-MEE-nee-um
Saying the i like ee, as in many other languages. MIN has the short i of sit.
NotAL-yuh-min-ee-um
Stressing the first syllable. Al is only a light beat; the strong one is MIN.
Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.
Wrap the fish in aluminium foil before you bake it.
My bike has a light aluminium frame.
Most drink cans are made of aluminium.
Because they use two different forms of the name. The English chemist Humphry Davy named the metal in the early 1800s, and by 1812 both aluminum and aluminium were in print.
The longer form matches other element names that end in -ium, such as sodium and potassium. British English kept aluminium. American English kept aluminum.
The extra i changes more than the spelling. It adds a syllable and moves the stress: al-yuh-MIN-ee-um against uh-LOO-mih-num. The lu of the British word becomes a light yuh.
Use the form your listeners use, and keep it whole. A mix such as uh-LOO-mih-nee-um is neither the British word nor the American one.
Rhymes and words that share its tricky sound. Open any of them in the checker and say it.
In Slova you say new words out loud in every lesson, at your level, in lessons built around what you love.