Slova
Paparazzi is pronounced pah-pah-RAHT-see in American English and pap-uh-RAT-see in British English. It has four syllables, and the stress is on the third. The zz is ts, as in the end of cats.
paparazzi
plural noun · photographers who follow famous people to take pictures of them
IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. Oxford Learner's has no entry for paparazzi. We used Cambridge, which lists both accents. The recording is American English.
Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.
US American English/ˌpɑː.pɑːˈrɑːt.si/
pah
pah
RAHTstressed
see
UK British English/ˌpæp.ərˈæt.si/
pap
uh
RATstressed
see
Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes paparazzi, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.
Tip. The zz is ts, not z: pah-pah-RAHT-see (US). The stress is on the third syllable.
Record yourself and play it next to our recording: the quickest way to hear a difference.
Say this word
paparazzi
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What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say pah-pah-RAHT-see.
Notpap-uh-RAZ-ee
Reading zz as z. In Italian it is ts.
Notpah-pah-RAH-zee
Reading zz as z, and dropping the t. The ending is tsee.
NotPAP-uh-rat-see
Stressing the first syllable. The stress is on the third.
Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.
The paparazzi waited outside the hotel all night.
The actor tried to hide from the paparazzi.
She hates the paparazzi and their cameras.
The tricky part is zz. In Italian a double z between vowels is ts, as in pizza (PEET-sa). So the word is not paparazzi with a z sound. It ends in raht-see (US) or rat-see (UK).
The word is the plural of paparazzo, one photographer. It became famous through a character called Paparazzo in the 1960 Italian film La Dolce Vita, and English picked it up from there. English uses paparazzi as a plural noun.
Cambridge lists the American form with ah vowels and the British form with a, and Oxford has no entry for it. Put the weight on the third syllable and say ts clearly.
Rhymes and words that share its tricky sound. Open any of them in the checker and say it.
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