Pronunciation · Everyday language

How to pronounce island

The s in island is silent: CMUdict gives EYE-lund (AY1 L AH0 N D), so the word begins like "eye" and has no "is".

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The dictionary sound sequence

CMUdict lists this North American English pronunciation for island. Read each sequence from left to right. The numbers mark vowel stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

Dictionary variant 1

AY1 L AH0 N D

Syllable estimate: 2 vowel nuclei
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

Check island in Merriam-Webster and listen to available dictionary audio.

Syllable counts come from vowel tokens; CMUdict does not supply syllable boundaries here. Variant order follows the dictionary and does not rank correctness. This lexicon does not represent every accent or context.

Use island in context

Island is so common that adults rarely think about it, but it trips up children and English learners who sound the s. It also appears in place names, travel scripts and nature narration. The s was added to the spelling centuries ago, borrowed from isle. It was never pronounced.

The ferry to the island leaves every hour.
They rented a cabin on a small island in the lake.

Read the sound tokens

Each example word below is a cue for the named sound, rather than a respelling of island. Unstressed vowels may sound reduced. These cues follow the CMU phoneme-set key (Appendix A).

AYsound in hidevowel

Lsound in leeconsonant

AHsound in hutvowel

Nsound in kneeconsonant

Dsound in deeconsonant

Take it to your next recording

Make an audition worksheet

Select a dictionary variant for your checklist. The two original sentences retain their normal spelling; this worksheet helps you review a recording rather than forcing a speech engine to use phonemes.

Worksheet pronunciation variant

Your plain-text audition worksheet

How to pronounce island

Word: island
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: AY1 L AH0 N D
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 2
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
The ferry to the island leaves every hour.
They rented a cabin on a small island in the lake.

REVIEW CHECKLIST
[ ] Read both sentences naturally; keep the source wording.
[ ] Compare the intended pronunciation with the selected dictionary variant.
[ ] Listen for vowel sounds, consonants, and word stress in context.
[ ] Check with a speaker or another dictionary when accent or meaning matters.
[ ] Generate and listen to a short Murmur sample before exporting the full script.

Practice note: Read eye and land together, then shorten the second vowel.

CMUdict is a North American English lexicon, not a recording or a complete accent guide.
Variant order is dictionary order; it is not a ranking of correctness.
Source: https://github.com/cmusphinx/cmudict/blob/74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690/cmudict.dict
Source commit: 74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690
License: https://www.murmurtts.com/downloads/cmudict-license.txt
Reference: https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/island

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Dictionary source

The phonemes on this page come from CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The dictionary maintainers acknowledge that errors and omissions can remain; check another source or a speaker when the pronunciation matters.

CMUdict README · Included dictionary license

Source version and checksum

Commit: 74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690

Dictionary SHA-256: 81917843c7f44ce2b094ac63873c2c7a4cf802040792c455ba3ca406891c3d22

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