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 funny in American English
FUH·nee
Start here
Americans pronounce funny as FUH-nee (/ˈfʌni/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "My uncle loves to wear that funny hat" or "The funny fan fell off the roof of the office" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "funny".
2 syllables, 4 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.
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.
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 "funny" 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 FUH — keep everything else short and quick.
fuh·NEE→FUH·nee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "funny" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "FUH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "FUH-nee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "funny" 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 "FUH-nee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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