ah/ɑ/
Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.
How to pronounce obligation in American English
ah·bluh·GAY·shuhn
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Americans pronounce obligation as ah-bluh-GAY-shuhn (/ˌɑbləˈgeɪʃən/). Stress falls on the third syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "I forgot that I have a family obligation this weekend".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "obligation".
4 syllables, 9 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
b/b/
Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.
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.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
g/g/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, then release.
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.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
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.
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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 "obligation", 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.
obligation→AH·bluh·GAY·shuhn
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the third syllable, not the others. Stretch GAY — keep everything else short and quick.
AH·BLUH·gay·SHUHN→AH·bluh·GAY·shuhn
03
Pronouncing the unstressed 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.
ah·BLUH·GAY·shuhn→AH·bluh·GAY·shuhn
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "obligation" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the third syllable — say "GAY" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "ah-bluh-GAY-shuhn" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "obligation" 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 "ah-bluh-GAY-shuhn" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "obligation" 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 "ah-bluh-GAY-shuhn" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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