uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
How to pronounce alarm in American English
uh·LARM
Start here
Americans pronounce alarm as uh-LARM (/əˈlɑrm/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "Start the party after the alarm stops" or "The alarm will sound if there's a problem" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "alarm".
2 syllables, 4 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
l/l/
Place the tip of your tongue against the alveolar ridge just behind your top front teeth, the same contact point as /t/, /d/, and /n/. The difference is what happens to the air: for /l/, you let it flow continuously around the <em>sides</em> of the tongue (that's why /l/ is called a lateral). Turn your voice on the whole time. Lips stay relaxed, no rounding or flaring. For the Dark L variant at the end of a syllable, also pull the back of the tongue up and back toward the soft palate.
ar/ɑr/
Open wide for the 'ah' vowel. Lift the tongue back and up while flaring the lips for the 'r'.
m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
In real conversation
Hear "alarm" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"He forgot to set his alarm and overslept by almost two hours."
hee fer·GAHT tuh SEHT hihz uh·LARM and oh·ver·SLEHPT bahy AHL·mohst TOO OWRZ
"I believe there's a problem with the alarm."
ahy buh·LEEV DHAIRZ uh PRAH·bluhm wihth dhee uh·LARM
"Start the party after the alarm stops."
START dhuh PAR·tee AF·ter dhee uh·LARM STAHPS
"The alarm will sound if there's a problem."
dhee uh·LARM wihl SOWND ihf DHAIRZ uh PRAH·bluhm
"I need to adjust my alarm because my commute takes longer than expected."
ahy NEED tuh uh·JUHST mahy uh·LARM buh·KUHZ mahy kuh·MYOOT TAYKS LAHNG·ger dhuhn uhk·spehk·tuhd
"The alarm went off three times before she finally got out of bed."
dhee uh·LARM wehnt AHF THREE TAHYMZ buh·FOR shee FAHY·nuh·lee GAHT OWT uhv BEHD
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Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the second syllable, not the others. Stretch LARM — keep everything else short and quick.
UH·larm→uh·LARM
02
Pronouncing the first syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the first syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
UH·LARM→uh·LARM
03
Pronouncing the "R" too clearly.
Americans use a relaxed retroflex R — the tongue curls back rather than rolling. The R is one continuous sound with the vowel before it, not two separate sounds.
… (no R)→… r (curl the tongue)
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "alarm" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "LARM" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "uh-LARM" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the first syllable in "alarm" reduce to "uh"?
Unstressed syllables in American English collapse toward a schwa — a lazy, neutral "uh" sound. The full vowel is what textbooks teach, but in actual American speech every unstressed vowel reduces. The respell "uh-LARM" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
How do I pronounce the R in "alarm"?
Americans use a relaxed retroflex R: the tongue curls back rather than rolling, and the R is one continuous sound with the vowel before it — not two separate sounds. Don't try to pronounce a separate vowel followed by a separate R. Treat them as a single shape.
Is the American pronunciation of "alarm" different from British English?
American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "uh-LARM" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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