While teaching an accent reduction class last week I noticed that my students were not pronouncing acronyms (or initialisms) correctly. This caused some communication confusion!
In spoken English acronyms are stressed on the last syllable or letter. That means you must lengthen the last letter and pronounce it with a higher pitch. After the stress your pitch should fall slightly. Here are a few examples:
ATM–>ATMm
USA–>USAa
FBI–>FBIi
LA–>LAa
CD–>CDd
DVD–>DVDd
If you say every letter in an acronym with the same stress American English speakers will have a difficult time understanding what you are saying.
Tags: Syllable stress
