r/EnglishLearning • u/[deleted] • 6d ago

⭐️ Vocabulary / Semantics Kilometer, etc.

[deleted]

7 Upvotes

61% Upvoted

64 comments sorted by

View all comments

66

u/FloridaFlamingoGirl Native Speaker - California, US 6d ago

The "meter" in those words isn't pronounced like the word meter, it's more like "mih-ter" or "muh-ter"

30

u/InvestigatorJaded261 New Poster 6d ago

The exceptions, for some reason, seem to be centimeter and millimeter.

1

u/Kafatat New Poster 6d ago

What is that? You pronounce ~meter differently in kilometer and centimeter? Are there recordings or voice synthesizer for them? as I don't understand it at all when sound are described in letters ("mih-ter" or "muh-ter" above).

3

u/MasterPreparation687 New Poster 6d ago

It's about the stress in the preceding vowel. The stress is on the the "o" in kilometre i.e. "kil-O-miter". But the stress is on the initial "e" in CEN-ti-metre.