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 dishwasher in American English
DIHSH·wah·sher
Start here
Americans pronounce dishwasher as DIHSH-wah-sher (/ˈdɪʃˌwɑʃər/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The dishwasher has been making a strange noise lately".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "dishwasher".
3 syllables, 7 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.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
w/w/
Round your lips into a tight circle. Lift the back of your tongue toward the soft palate and add voice.
ah/ɑ/
Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
er/ər/
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
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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 first syllable, not the others. Stretch DIHSH — keep everything else short and quick.
dihsh·WAH·SHER→DIHSH·WAH·sher
02
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 "dishwasher" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "DIHSH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "DIHSH-wah-sher" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "dishwasher"?
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 "dishwasher" 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 "DIHSH-wah-sher" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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