s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
How to pronounce city in American English
SIH·tee
Start here
Americans pronounce city as SIH-tee (/ˈsɪɾi/). In "city", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. This is called the Flap T, a hallmark of natural-sounding American speech. It comes out as SIH·tee. Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "What a beautiful city this is" or "He's from a city near the coast" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "city".
2 syllables, 4 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ih/ɪ/
Drop your jaw slightly with relaxed lips. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and arch the top-front toward the roof.
t/t/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Don't stop the airflow — just a quick tap.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
In real conversation
Hear "city" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"Have you ever been to New York City?"
hav yoo EH·ver bihn tuh noo YORK SIH·dee
"He sketched the architecture of the city while sitting in the park."
hee SKEHCHT dhee AR·kuh·tehk·cher uhv dhuh SIH·dee WAHYL SIH·duhng ihn dhuh PARK
"Her decision to move to a new city was a surprise."
her duh·SIH·zhuhn tuh MOOV tuh uh noo SIH·dee wuhz uh ser·PRAHYZ
"He's been living in the city for six weeks."
heez bihn LIH·vuhng ihn dhuh SIH·dee fer SIHKS WEEKS
"He's from a city near the coast."
heez fruhm uh SIH·dee NEER dhuh KOHST
"She needed to obtain a building permit from the city."
shee NEE·duhd tuh uhb·TAYN uh BIHL·duhng PUR·muht fruhm dhuh SIH·dee
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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
Saying a hard "T" in the middle.
In "city", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. /t/ or /d/ becomes a quick tap [ɾ] — sounds like a soft D. The tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth.
SIH-tee→SIH·tee
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch SIH — keep everything else short and quick.
sih·TEE→SIH·tee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "city" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SIH-tee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why doesn't the T sound like a T in "city"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "city" sounds closer to "SIH-tee" than to a crisp-T pronunciation. This is the flap-T rule, one of the most distinctive sounds of casual American speech.
Is the American pronunciation of "city" 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 "SIH-tee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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