Learn to Pronounce Difficult Words with YouTube Videos

If you don’t know the correct pronunciation of certain words or names and you are too embarrassed to ask, no worries as there are dozens of websites that can help you learn how to pronounce any word on your own.

The quickest option is Google. Use the define: search operator with any word and Google will show a little audio icon next to the word’s definition. Click the icon to listen to the audio pronunciation.

define:croissant [Google Dictionary Search]

The pronunciation feature in Google is however not available for non-English words or names of people but that is where YouTube videos can be of great help.

Let’s say we want to learn how to pronounce Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that disrupted air travel across Europe in 2010 for several days. Here’s what you can do.

Go to YouTube.com and search for any word followed by “,cc” - this is a YouTube search operator that will only show videos that have closed captions.

Eyjafjallajokull, cc [YouTube search for videos with closed captions]

In YouTube search results, pick a video that has that particular word in the transcript. Then click the transcript button and jump to the line containing that word (see screenshot).

pronounce words with video

You can now hear the speaker in the YouTube video using that word and that should give you a good idea of the correct pronunciation. And since YouTube has users around the globe, you can use the same closed-captions trick to learn how a word is pronounced in different countries of the world - just pick a different video from the search results.

If you want to share a video pronunciation with a friend, just use the deep linking feature of YouTube to directly link to the spoken word.

Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal

Google Developer Expert, Google Cloud Champion

Amit Agarwal is a Google Developer Expert in Google Workspace and Google Apps Script. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (I.I.T.) and is the first professional blogger in India.

Amit has developed several popular Google add-ons including Mail Merge for Gmail and Document Studio. Read more on Lifehacker and YourStory

0

Awards & Titles

Digital Inspiration has won several awards since it's launch in 2004.

Google Developer Expert

Google Developer Expert

Google awarded us the Google Developer Expert award recogizing our work in Google Workspace.

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

ProductHunt Golden Kitty

Our Gmail tool won the Lifehack of the Year award at ProductHunt Golden Kitty Awards in 2017.

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft MVP Alumni

Microsoft awarded us the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title for 5 years in a row.

Google Cloud Champion

Google Cloud Champion

Google awarded us the Champion Innovator title recognizing our technical skill and expertise.

Email Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter to stay up to date.

We will never send any spam emails. Promise.