How to pronounce bless in American English

IPA /blɛs/ Syllables 1 · blehs Stress 1st syllable

BLEHS

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Americans pronounce bless as BLEHS (/blɛs/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Bless you! Are you feeling okay?".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "bless".

1 syllable, 4 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

b/b/

Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.

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.

eh/ɛ/

Drop your jaw moderately. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and lift the mid-front part slightly toward the roof.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "bless" in the wild.

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"Bless you! Are you feeling okay?"

BLEHS yoo ar yoo FEE·luhng oh·KAY

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "bless" 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 "BLEHS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.