How to Pronounce the Days of the Week (American English)

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The Days of the Week:

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Monday, Monday is spelled with an O, but it is pronounced as the ‘UH’ as in ‘BUTTER’. Monday.

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Now all of the days of the week, of course, end in the word ‘day’, and it is pronounced the same

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in each of these days of the week, with the AY Diphthong.

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Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday.

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Wednesday. Now, Wednesday is spelled with a D, but that D is silent.

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Wedn-es-day, Wednesday, Wednesday.

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Thursday. The TH that begins this sound is unvoiced: Th. Thurs-day.

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So with this we have that tricky UR [ɜ] vowel-consonant mix.

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So we go from the Th straight to that uurr straight to the zz.

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So in a way, there is no real pure vowel sound in that first syllable. Thursday.

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Friday. It’s spelled with an I but it’s pronounced the Diphthong ai, ai, Fri-, Friday, Friday.

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Saturday. Now this is, of course, spelled with a T, Sat-, but it is pronounced as a D, Sadder.

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Just like ‘I am sad, and now I’m sadder; it’s pronounced exactly the same way.

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Saturday. Saturday.

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Sunday. Sunday is very straight-forward, isn’t it? Sunday.

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Now to focus on, how the sound looks in the mouth, and not just how it sounds to the ear.

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I’m going to step through the beginning sound for each of these days of the week.

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Here you can see the M sound being formed. The lips are still together,

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but the teeth are already starting to separate within the mouth,

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which is why the lips look a little bit pulled. This is the sound for ‘Tuesday’.

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You can see the teeth are together to make that Tt, tt, sound

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and the corners of the lips are starting to come in to make that OO sound.

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And this is the Ww Wednesday sound. As you can see, the lips have come in to make this OO shape,

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which is critical for correctly pronouncing the W sound. This is the Th sound for Thursday.

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In this Th sound, the tongue must come out from the teeth.

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It’s a little bit harder to see here because my bottom lip is covering up my bottom teeth.

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But you can see that tongue, still, coming out underneath the top teeth.

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The Ff, Friday sound. Here, the bottom lip is coming up and touching the very bottom of the top

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front teeth, Ff. And you can see that the mouth is not completely relaxed because you see a little

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bit of tension in the cheeks around the corners of the mouth.

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Here we have the ss sound, which begins both Saturday and Sunday. Ss. Again,

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it is not so clear to see in speaking because my bottom lip is covering up my bottom teeth.

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They have come together so that the air can release to make that Ss sound.

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Now I’m going to show the photos in random order, and I want you to guess, based on what you see,

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what is that beginning sound, what is that Day of the Week.

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If you are watching this video through my website, you can see the answers below the transcript.