About the Literacy Test
The Literacy Test is a free pronunciation game. One person reads fifteen tricky words out loud, another keeps score, and a report card settles it.
It grew out of the “words my boyfriend can’t pronounce” videos. The hard part of making one was finding a good list of words and agreeing on how each one is actually said. This site does both, and adds a grade at the end.
How the words are chosen
Every word is one that people tend to learn from reading and rarely hear. They are grouped into five levels: everyday classics, science, food, U.S. place names and a hard mode. You can see every word and how to say it.
How the pronunciations are written
Each word is respelled the way it sounds in common American English, with the stressed syllable in capitals. Many words have more than one accepted pronunciation. When that happens the card shows the most widely used one, so go easy on close calls. If you think one is wrong, write to us and we will check it.
What this is not
It is not a measure of literacy or intelligence. Saying a word wrong usually means you met it in a book before you heard it, which is a good sign.
Who makes it
An independent developer. There is no account to create and nothing to pay.