Medical Terminology Simplified

PRONUNCIATION GUIDELINES

Here are guidelines to help you pronounce medical terms, as well as understand pronunciation marks used throughout

this text and in most dictionaries.

Special Sounds

Here are rules regarding certain letter combinations and special sounds attributed to letters, based on their placement

in a medical word:

• For aeand oe,only the second vowel is pronounced.
  Examples are bursae, pleurae,and roentgen.


• The soft sound of sand jis given to cand g,respectively, before e, i,and yin words of Greek or Latin origin.
  Examples are cerebrum, circumcision, cycle, gel, gingivitis, giant,and gyrate.


• Before other letters, cand ghave a hard sound.
  Examples are cardiac, cast, gastric,and gonad.


• The letters chare sometimes pronounced like k.
  Examples are cholesterol, cholera,and cholemia.


• When pnappears at the beginning of a word, pis silent and only nis pronounced.
  Examples are pneumoniaand pneumotoxin.


• When pnappears in the middle of a word, pand nare pronounced.
  Examples are orthopneaand hyperpnea.


• When psappears at the beginning of a word, pis silent and only sis pronounced.
  Examples are psychologyand psychosis.


• When forming the final letter(s) of a word, eand esare commonly pronounced as separate syllables.
  Examples are syncope,systole,and nares.


• When iappears at the end of a word (to form a plural), it is pronounced eye.
  Examples are bronchi, fungi,and nuclei.


• All other vowels and consonants have normal English sounds.

Pronunciation Marks

Diacritical marks and capitalization help explain pronunciations throughout the text. Diacritical marks show vowel

sounds, and capitalization shows emphasis.

Diacritical marksare symbols placed above the 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:

āin rāte ăin ălone

ēin rēbirth ĕin ĕver

īin īsle ĭin ĭt

ōin ōver ŏin nŏt

ūin ūnite ŭin cŭt

Capitalizationindicates primary accent. For example, the pronunciation LĔT-tĕrindicates that emphasis should

be placed on the first syllable when pronouncing the word letter.

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