d/d/
Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.
How to pronounce delivered in American English
duh·LIH·verd
Start here
Americans pronounce delivered as duh-LIH-verd (/dəˈlɪvərd/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The newspaper is delivered to our doorstep around six o'clock" or "The monologue was delivered with such emotion that people cried" — more examples below.
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "delivered" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "delivered".
3 syllables, 7 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
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.
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.
v/v/
Lift your bottom lip so its inner edge (where the wet part meets the dry part) touches the very bottom of your top front teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you blow air through.
er/ər/
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
d/d/
Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.
In real conversation
Hear "delivered" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
Find another
Looking for a different word or sentence?
Search the entire library
/
Press / anywhere to focus the search box.
Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "delivered", the "d" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
delivered→duh·LIH·verd
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the second syllable, not the others. Stretch LIH — keep everything else short and quick.
DUH·lih·VERD→duh·LIH·verd
03
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.
DUH·LIH·verd→duh·LIH·verd
04
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 "delivered" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "LIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "duh-LIH-verd" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the first syllable in "delivered" 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 "duh-LIH-verd" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
How do I pronounce the R in "delivered"?
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 "delivered" 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 "duh-LIH-verd" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
Stop reading about "delivered". Start saying it.
SayWaader is the AI pronunciation coach for American English. Practice 5 minutes a day. Get a 5-axes accent assessment. Sound like you live here.