Slova
Bourgeois is pronounced BOORZH-wah, with two syllables and the stress on the first. The ge is the zh of vision, and the ois sounds like wah. American and British English say it almost the same way.
bourgeois
adjective · belonging to the middle class, often with ordinary or traditional values
Also said: US /ˌbʊrˈʒwɑː/; UK /ˈbɔːʒ.wɑː/.
IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Cambridge lists BAWZH-wah for British English; Oxford lists BOORZH-wah and a US form stressed on the second syllable. The recording is American English.
Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.
US American English/ˈbʊrʒ.wɑː/
BOORZHstressed
wah
UK British English/ˈbʊəʒ.wɑː/
BOORZHstressed
wah
Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes bourgeois, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.
Tip. The g is zh and the ois is WAH: BOORZH-wah. It has two syllables.
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bourgeois
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What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say BOORZH-wah.
Notbor-JOYS
Reading the spelling: g as j and ois as oys. The end is wah.
NotBUR-jwah
Using the ur of her and a j sound. Start with oo and use zh.
Notboor-ZHWAH
Stressing the second syllable. The usual stress is on the first.
Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.
He grew up in a bourgeois family in Lyon.
She found their life too comfortable and bourgeois.
The writer made fun of bourgeois manners.
Bourgeois is a French word and keeps its French sounds. The ou is oo, the g is zh as in vision, and the ois ending is wah, so there is no oys at the end. It does not rhyme with noise.
It comes from French bourgeois, from Old French borgeis, a person who lived in a town. The root is the old word for a fortified town, which is also in borough and in city names like Hamburg.
Cambridge also lists a British form with an aw vowel, BAWZH-wah, and Oxford lists a US form stressed on the second syllable. The first-syllable stress is the simplest to say.
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.