How to pronounce link in American English

IPA /lɪŋk/ Syllables 1 · lihngk Stress 1st syllable
LIHNGK
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Americans pronounce link as LIHNGK (/lɪŋk/). You'll hear it in sentences like "I'll send you the link as soon as I find it".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "link".

1 syllable, 4 sounds. 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.

Mouth position for /l/ as in LET
ih/ɪ/

Drop your jaw slightly with relaxed lips. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and arch the top-front toward the roof.

Mouth position for SIT Vowel
ng/ŋ/

Lift the back of your tongue to the soft palate. Lower your soft palate to let air flow through your nose.

Mouth position for /ŋ/ as in SING
k/k/

Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.

Mouth position for /k/ as in KEY
In real conversation

Hear "link" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"I'll send you the link as soon as I find it."
ahyl SEHND yuh dhuh LIHNGK uhz SOON uhz ahy FAHYND iht
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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "link" 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 "LIHNGK" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.

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