[Vocabulary] Pronunciation of the word "teenager"

[fir602]

Hi, I am wondering which pronunciation is right, "teen-a-ger" or "tee-na-ger"?
I have listened to almost every clip on Youtube and they all pronounced as "tee-na-ger" to my ears, but some of my friends said it should be pronounced as "teen-a-ger".
And I have searched for the syllable of this word, and the result is "teen.ag.er" (This is the site I found:https://www.howmanysyllables.com/words/teenager)

So I'm very confused right now. Or, is it possible that both of them are correct?

Thank you so much!

-------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you all for answering my questions!
Just found that I wasn't being specific enough, so I clear my thoughts again.

Does the [n] sound continuously link to the [e] sound, and it will be sounded like "teen-na-ger", or the [n] and the [e] sound are separated?

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm not really sure this is a question of pronunciation. We don't break the word up when we say it. We just run all three syllables together into one word. It has three syllables no matter where you choose to make the breaks.

 

[dunchee]

Hi, I am wondering which pronunciation is right, "teen-a-ger" or "tee-na-ger"?
I have listened to almost every clip on Youtube and they all pronounced as "tee-na-ger" to my ears, but some of my friends said it should be pronounced as "teen-a-ger".
And I have searched for the syllable of this word, and the result is "teen.ag.er" (This is the site I found:https://www.howmanysyllables.com/words/teenager)

How does the sound clip on that site (howmanysyllables.com) sound to you? Still tee-na-ger?

Now type in "teen" on the same site and listen to its sound clip. Does it sound tee-n, or teen to you?



--
Not a teacher.

 

[jutfrank]

To me, the pronunciation is better represented as tee-na-ger. That's how I would write it if I were teaching how to pronounce this word in class. I believe this partition would encourage learners to make the link between the /n/ and /ei/ sounds. I don't really understand why phoneticians would do it the other way.

 

[Roman55]

The tonic stress in the word teenager is on the first syllable. If you pronounce teen a little more forcefully than the rest of the word, and sustain it a little longer than the other syllables, the result should be like this. That is exactly how I pronounce the word. Of course, the syllables run together but the 'n' is part of the first syllabe, not the second one.

 

[fir602]

How does the sound clip on that site (howmanysyllables.com) sound to you? Still tee-na-ger?

Now type in "teen" on the same site and listen to its sound clip. Does it sound tee-n, or teen to you?




--
Not a teacher.

Hi, the word "teen" does sound like "teen" to me. I understand this word is a combination of teen and age. But I want to know how would people pronounce this word. Does the [n] sound continuously link to the [e] sound, and it will be sounded like "teen-na-ger", or the [n] and the [e] sound are separated?

 

[emsr2d2]

Have a listen to the 3 pronunciations here. If I had to choose, I'd say it sounds like all 3 are tee-nager. The stress is certainly on the first syllable and it sounds a little more like "tee" than "teen".

 

[jutfrank]

the 'n' is part of the first syllabe, not the second one.

I wonder why you think so?

 

[Tdol]

I think both pronunciations are fine.

 

[Raymott]

I think the point at the moment is syllabification.
http://www.syllablecount.com/syllables/teenager

 

[jutfrank]

There seem to be two questions to deal with here:

1) Do teen-a-ger and tee-na-ger represent the same pronunciation or not? If so, what might be the reasons for partitioning in each way? If not, what's the difference?

2) Are we basing the syllabification on morphology or phonetics? Or perhaps both? If on morphology, then the first syllable is obviously teen, but if purely on phonetics, I would argue that the first syllable is tee.