h/h/
Push a stream of air from your throat through your open mouth. No tongue or lip contact.
How to pronounce harshly in American English
HARSH·lee
Start here
Americans pronounce harshly as HARSH-lee (/ˈhɑrʃli/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The opposition party criticized the new budget proposal harshly".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "harshly".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ar/ɑr/
Open wide for the 'ah' vowel. Lift the tongue back and up while flaring the lips for the 'r'.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
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.
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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 HARSH — keep everything else short and quick.
harsh·LEE→HARSH·lee
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 "harshly" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "HARSH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "HARSH-lee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "harshly"?
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 "harshly" 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 "HARSH-lee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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