vitamin
noun · a natural substance in food that your body needs to stay healthy
- VYvaɪ (stressed)
- tuht̬ə
- minmɪn
- VITvɪt (stressed)
- uhə
- minmɪn
- US /ˈvaɪ.t̬ə.mɪn/VY-tuh-min Recorded voice
- UK /ˈvɪt.ə.mɪn/VIT-uh-min Your device’s voice
How to pronounce vitamin
Vitamin is pronounced VY-tuh-min in American English and VIT-uh-min in British English. It has three syllables with the stress on the first. The only real difference is the first vowel: the eye sound in the US, a short i in the UK.
- 3 syllables
- Stress on VY
- US and UK IPA
- Checked in Cambridge and Oxford
IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. The recording is American English.
Vitamin, sound by sound
Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.
US American English/ˈvaɪ.t̬ə.mɪn/
VYstressed
- /v/as in van
- /aɪ/as in my
tuh
- /t̬/as in water (US)
- /ə/as in about
min
- /m/as in man
- /ɪ/as in sit
- /n/as in now
UK British English/ˈvɪt.ə.mɪn/
VITstressed
- /v/as in van
- /ɪ/as in sit
- /t/as in tea
uh
- /ə/as in about
min
- /m/as in man
- /ɪ/as in sit
- /n/as in now
Say vitamin yourself
Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes vitamin, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.
Tip. Americans start with VY, as in vine. British speakers start with VIT, as in bit.
Record yourself and play it next to our recording: the quickest way to hear a difference.
Say it
Say this word
vitamin
Compare
Ours
Yours
Your recording stays in this tab. It is gone when you leave the page.
Common vitamin pronunciation mistakes
What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say VY-tuh-min.
Not
VEE-tuh-meenUsing European vowels, as in vitamina. English has VY or VIT, and a short min.
Not
vy-TAM-inStressing the second syllable. Put the beat on the first.
Not
VIT-uh-meenEnding in meen, like amine. The last syllable is a short min.
Vitamin in a sentence
Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.
Oranges are full of vitamin C.
I forgot to take my vitamin this morning.
This cereal has added vitamin D.
Why do Brits say vitamin with a short i?
The word is little more than 100 years old. In 1912 the Polish biochemist Casimir Funk named these substances vitamines, from the Latin vita, life, and amine, a type of chemical compound, because he thought they all were amines.
They were not. In 1920 the British biochemist Jack Drummond suggested dropping the final e, and vitamin became the standard spelling.
The two accents read the vi differently. American English uses the long i of vital and vine: VY-tuh-min. British English uses the short i of bit: VIT-uh-min. Both stress the first syllable, and both end in a short min, not meen.
Words that sound like vitamin
Rhymes and words that share its tricky sound. Open any of them in the checker and say it.
Say words like vitamin out loud with Slova
In Slova you say new words out loud in every lesson, at your level, in lessons built around what you love.