m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
How to pronounce mayor in American English
MAY·er
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Americans pronounce mayor as MAY-er (/ˈmeɪər/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The mayor promised to address infrastructure issues in the city".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "mayor".
2 syllables, 3 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ay/eɪ/
Start with your jaw slightly open and the front of your tongue forward and slightly up. Glide upward, your jaw closes a little more and your tongue arches higher toward the roof of the mouth.
er/ər/
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
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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 MAY — keep everything else short and quick.
may·ER→MAY·er
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 "mayor" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "MAY" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "MAY-er" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "mayor"?
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 "mayor" 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 "MAY-er" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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