How To Pronounce Desperate

In British English, desperate is pronounced /ˈdes.pər.ət/ or /ˈdes.pər.ɪt/. The narrow phonetic transcription is [ˈdes.pər.ət̚]. In American English, it is pronounced /ˈdes.pər.ət/.

Desperate has three syllables, and the main stress falls on the first syllable. British and American speakers say it the same way.

Slashes / / show the phonemic transcription, the sounds that change meaning. Square brackets [ ] show the phonetic transcription, with the finer detail of how the sounds are actually made.