How to Pronounce VACATION -- American English

In this American English pronunciation video, we're going to go over the pronunciation of

the word 'vacation'.

This week's word of the week is 'vacation'. Vacation. It's a three-syllable word with

stress on the middle syllable. Va-ca-tion. Vacation. It begins with the V consonant sound,

where the bottom lip comes up and touches the bottom of the top front teeth, vv, vv.

Then it has the AY as in SAY diphthong. The jaw does need to drop for that first sound

of the diphthong, va-, va-. Then we have the K consonant sound, where the back part of

the tongue will reach up here, kk, touch the soft palate and pull away to make the K sound.

The stressed syllable also has the AY as in SAY diphthong. Since this syllable is stressed,

the jaw will probably drop a little bit more than it did in the unstressed syllable. Vaca-,

-ca-. Vacation. The last syllable is the SH, schwa, N sound: -tion, -tion, -tion. You don't

need to worry about making the schwa. The N sort of takes over that sound, -tion, -tion.

Since it's unstressed, we do want it to be very fast. And, it will be lower in pitch

and flatter than -ca-, the stressed syllable. Vacation, vacation.

Here's a video from my summer vacation.

That's it, your Word of the Week. Try it out yourself. Make up a sentence with the

word, record it, and post it as a video response to this video on YouTube. I can't wait to

watch it.

That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.