j/dʒ/
Touch the front of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, then release into a 'zh' position. Add vocal cord vibration.
How to pronounce genuinely in American English
JEHN·yoo·uhn·lee
Start here
Americans pronounce genuinely as JEHN-yoo-uhn-lee (/ˈdʒɛnjuənli/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "He seemed genuinely upset after hearing what happened" or "Please know that I am genuinely remorseful for my actions" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "genuinely".
4 syllables, 8 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
yoo/ju/
Start with the tongue mid-front raised high, almost touching the roof of the mouth (but not touching). Glide into a tight lip circle as the tongue back lifts.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
n/n/
SyllabicThe schwa before N disappears — N becomes the vowel of the syllable. Go straight from the previous consonant to N.
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 "genuinely" 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
Inserting a vowel before the syllabic consonant.
In "genuinely", the short unstressed vowel before "n" disappears — the schwa is absorbed and the "n" becomes the syllable nucleus on its own. Schwa is absorbed — consonant becomes the syllable nucleus.
genuinely→JEHN·yoo·uhn·lee
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch JEHN — keep everything else short and quick.
jehn·YOO·UHN·LEE→JEHN·yoo·uhn·lee
03
Pronouncing the unstressed syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the second syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
JEHN·yoo·UHN·lee→JEHN·yoo·uhn·lee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "genuinely" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "JEHN" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "JEHN-yoo-uhn-lee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the third syllable in "genuinely" 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 "JEHN-yoo-uhn-lee" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "genuinely" 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 "JEHN-yoo-uhn-lee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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