PRONUNCIATION GUIDELINES

Here are the guidelines to help you pronounce medical terms as well as understand pronunciation marks used in most dictionaries.

SPECIAL SOUNDS

Here are the rules regarding certain letter combinations and special sounds attributed to letters based on their placement in a
medical word:

1. For ae and oe only the second vowel is pronounced.

Examples: brusae, pleurae, roentgen

2. The soft sound of s and j are given to c and g, respectively, before e, i and y in words of Greek or Latin origin
Examples: cerebrum, circumcision, cycle, gel, gingivitis, giant, gyrate

3. Before other letters, c and g have a hard sound.

Examples: cardiac, cast, gastric, gonad

4. The letters ch are sometimes pronounced like k.

Examples: cholesterol, cholera, cholemia

5. When pn appears at the beginning of the word, p is silent and only n is pronounced.
Examples: pneumonia, pneumotoxin

6. When pn appears in the middle of the word, p and n are pronounced

Examples: orthopnea, hyperpnea

7. When ps appears at the beginning of a word, p is silent and only s is pronounced

Examples: psychology, psychosis

8. When forming the final letter(s) of a word, e and es are commonly pronounced as separate syllables.
Examples: syncope, systole, nares

9. When i appears at the end of a word (to form a plural), it is pronounced as eye.
Examples: fungi, bronchi, nuclei

10. All other vowels and consonants have normal English sounds

PRONUNCIATION MARKS

Diacritical marks and capitalization are used to aid pronunciations. Diacritical marks are used to show vowel sounds, and
capitalization is used to show emphasis.

DIACRITICAL MARKS are symbols placed above or under vowels. They show vowel sounds. In this text, only two diacritical marks are
used: the macron (¯) and the breve (˘)

The macron indicates the long The breve indicates the short
sound of vowels, as in: sound of vowels, as in:
ā in rate ă in apple
ē in rebirth ĕ in ever
ī in isle ĭ in it
ō in over ŏ in not
ū in unite ŭ in cut

CAPITALIZATION is used to indicate primary accent. For example, the pronunciation LĔT-tĕr indicates that emphasis should be
placed on the first syllable when pronouncing the word letter.