Is “film” one or two syllables?
“film” has 1 or 2 syllables, depending on how you say it. Most dictionaries count 1. FILM (1) vs FIL-um (2, Irish, Scottish, Indian English).
Every pronunciation, counted
| Say it like | IPA | Syllables | Count | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FILM | /ˈfɪlm/ | f ih l m | 1 | CMU dictionary |
| FIL-uhm | /ˈfɪl.əm/ | f ih l · ah m | 2 | Wiktionary (Scotland,North East England,Ireland,Northern Ontario) |
Syllables are shown in ARPAbet (the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary's phoneme alphabet). Respellings put the stressed syllable in capitals.
Why the count varies
Inserted vowel. Speakers insert a vowel into a consonant cluster (ath-uh-lete, um-buh-rella, fil-um, mis-chee-vee-us), adding a syllable that dictionaries do not list as standard.
What the dictionaries say
- Cambridge (UK) /fɪlm/
- Cambridge (US) /fɪlm/
- Wiktionary /fɪlm/, [fɪɫm], [ˈfɪlm̩] (Scotland,North East England,Ireland,Northern Ontario), [ˈfɪləm] (Scotland,North East England,Ireland,Northern Ontario)
For haiku, sonnets and song lyrics
For haiku, sonnets and other syllable-counted verse, 'film' is safest as 1 syllable, the count most dictionaries give. Poets have also used it as 2 syllables; either scans if the line is read naturally, but say which you mean if the count matters (haiku judges usually accept the dictionary count).
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Pronunciations from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, checked against Cambridge Dictionary and Wiktionary transcriptions. Hyphenation from the hyph_en_US patterns.