Sounds & words
Difficult English Words Trainer
The words everyone stumbles on, with phonetics, audio and a quiz.
About the Difficult English Words Trainer
Some English words trip up even native speakers: silent letters in “debt” and “subtle”, dropped syllables in “comfortable”, impossible-looking clusters in “strengths”. This trainer collects more than 80 of them with a plain explanation of why each is tricky and a respelling that shows how to say it.
IPA, syllable counts and the stressed syllable come from the CMU and Britfone dictionaries, shown for American and British English. Hear each word in a recorded voice, mark it as Learning or Known, and then test yourself with the quiz.
Most difficult words fall into a few families: silent letters, dropped syllables, irregular spellings and stress shifts. Learning them in families is faster than memorising one by one. When you open a word here, notice which family it belongs to, say the respelling slowly, then say it in a real sentence of your own.
How to use it
- 1Browse or search the list of difficult words.
- 2Open a word to see its IPA, syllables, stress and the reason it's tricky.
- 3Press Hear and say it aloud, slowly then at normal speed.
- 4Mark it Learning or Known and take the quiz when you've covered a few.
Practice tips
- Say the syllables separately, then blend them.
- Pay attention to which syllable is stressed.
- Silent letters: learn them as groups (K before N, W before R).
- Revisit your Learning list weekly.
What it measures, and what it doesn’t
IPA and syllable counts are real dictionary data. The 'Known / Learning' status and quiz scores are your own, saved on this device.
What your browser needs: Optional: speech voices to hear the words.
Progress is saved in your browser only. See the privacy policy.
Difficult English Words Trainer FAQ
Why do some words have two pronunciations?
Accents differ. We show the American and British dictionary forms, and the respelling note mentions common variants such as the two ways to say “often”.
What if a word isn't found in the dictionary?
A few unusual words aren't in the dictionary data. The page then shows the respelling and tip without IPA instead of guessing.
How is the quiz scored?
Each question has one correct answer, and your score is correct answers out of ten. It is for self-testing only.