g/g/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, then release.
How to pronounce garage in American English
guh·RAHZH
Start here
Americans pronounce garage as guh-RAHZH (/gəˈrɑʒ/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "A beige garage" or "Put the black bike back in the garage" — more examples below.
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "garage" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "garage".
2 syllables, 5 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.
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.
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.
zh/ʒ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Add vocal cord vibration.
In real conversation
Hear "garage" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"A beige garage."
uh BAYZH guh·RAHZH
"He cleared out the garage and organized all the tools."
hee KLEERD OWT dhuh guh·RAHZH and OR·guh·nahyzd AHL dhuh TOOLZ
"I need to install new shelves in the garage this weekend."
ahy NEED tuh uhn·STAHL noo SHEHLVZ ihn dhuh guh·RAHZH dhihs WEE·kehnd
"Ignore the angry ghost in the grey garage."
uhg·NOR dhee ANG·gree GOHST ihn dhuh GRAY guh·RAHZH
"Put the black bike back in the garage."
PUUT dhuh BLAK BAHYK BAK ihn dhuh guh·RAHZH
"The parking garage was completely full when we arrived."
dhuh PAR·kuhng guh·RAHZH wuhz kuhm·PLEET·lee FUUL wehn wee uh·RAHYVD
Find another
Looking for a different word or sentence?
Search the entire library
/
Press / anywhere to focus the search box.
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 second syllable, not the others. Stretch RAHZH — keep everything else short and quick.
GUH·rahzh→guh·RAHZH
02
Pronouncing the first syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the first syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
GUH·RAHZH→guh·RAHZH
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "garage" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "RAHZH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "guh-RAHZH" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the first syllable in "garage" reduce to "uh"?
Unstressed syllables in American English collapse toward a schwa — a lazy, neutral "uh" sound. The full vowel is what textbooks teach, but in actual American speech every unstressed vowel reduces. The respell "guh-RAHZH" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "garage" 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 "guh-RAHZH" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
Stop reading about "garage". Start saying it.
SayWaader is the AI pronunciation coach for American English. Practice 5 minutes a day. Get a 5-axes accent assessment. Sound like you live here.