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 friendly in American English
FREHND·lee
Start here
Americans pronounce friendly as FREHND-lee (/ˈfrɛndli/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "She's a really friendly person" or "He took my friendly advice as a personal insult" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "friendly".
2 syllables, 7 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
r/r/
Curl or bunch your tongue without letting the tip touch the roof of your mouth. Brace the sides of your tongue against your upper back teeth, and round your lips slightly.
eh/ɛ/
Drop your jaw moderately. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and lift the mid-front part slightly toward the roof.
n/n/
Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth behind your teeth. Air flows through your nose.
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.
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.
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 "friendly" in the wild.
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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
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "friendly", 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.
friendly→FREHND·lee
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch FREHND — keep everything else short and quick.
frehnd·LEE→FREHND·lee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "friendly" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "FREHND" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "FREHND-lee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "friendly" 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 "FREHND-lee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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