f/f/
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
How to pronounce figure in American English
FIH·gyer
Start here
Americans pronounce figure as FIH-gyer (/ˈfɪgjər/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "A vague figure guided the group again".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "figure".
2 syllables, 5 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.
g/g/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, then release.
y/j/
Lift the middle of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth, but stop just short of touching. /j/ is an approximant, not a stop. The tongue tip stays down, lightly resting near the back of your bottom front teeth. Voice runs through the whole gesture, and the tongue glides smoothly down into the next vowel. The lips stay neutral or pre-shape for the upcoming vowel (rounding early for OO in <em>youth</em>, for example).
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 FIH — keep everything else short and quick.
fih·GYER→FIH·gyer
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 "figure" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "FIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "FIH-gyer" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "figure"?
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 "figure" 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 "FIH-gyer" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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