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 fixtures in American English
FIHKS·cherz
Start here
Americans pronounce fixtures as FIHKS-cherz (/ˈfɪkstʃərz/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "We installed new light fixtures in the dining room" or "I upgraded the light fixtures in the living room to LED bulbs" — more examples below.
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "fixtures" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "fixtures".
2 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.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
ch/tʃ/
Touch the front of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, then release into a 'sh' position. Flare your lips.
er/ər/
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
z/z/
Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.
In real conversation
Hear "fixtures" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
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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 FIHKS — keep everything else short and quick.
fihks·CHERZ→FIHKS·cherz
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 "fixtures" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "FIHKS" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "FIHKS-cherz" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "fixtures"?
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 "fixtures" 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 "FIHKS-cherz" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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