uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
How to pronounce illegally in American English
uh·LEE·guh·lee
Start here
Americans pronounce illegally as uh-LEE-guh-lee (/əˈliɡəli/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "She filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained illegally".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "illegally".
4 syllables, 7 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
g/g/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, then release.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
l/l/
SyllabicThe schwa before L disappears — L becomes the vowel of the syllable. Go straight from the previous consonant to a Dark L.
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 second syllable, not the others. Stretch LEE — keep everything else short and quick.
UH·lee·GUH·LEE→uh·LEE·guh·lee
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.
UH·LEE·guh·lee→uh·LEE·guh·lee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "illegally" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "LEE" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "uh-LEE-guh-lee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the first syllable in "illegally" 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 "uh-LEE-guh-lee" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "illegally" 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 "uh-LEE-guh-lee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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