uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
How to pronounce obscure in American English
uhb·SKYUUR
Start here
Americans pronounce obscure as uhb-SKYUUR (/əbˈskjʊr/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The cure for the allure is obscure" or "The obscure caricature was a poor cure" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "obscure".
2 syllables, 6 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.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
y/j/
Lift the middle of your tongue toward the roof of your mouth, but stop just short of touching. /j/ is an approximant, not a stop. The tongue tip stays down, lightly resting near the back of your bottom front teeth. Voice runs through the whole gesture, and the tongue glides smoothly down into the next vowel. The lips stay neutral or pre-shape for the upcoming vowel (rounding early for OO in <em>youth</em>, for example).
uur/ʊr/
Start with the 'uu' position. Pull the tongue back and up while maintaining the lip flare.
In real conversation
Hear "obscure" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
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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 SKYUUR — keep everything else short and quick.
UHB·skyuur→uhb·SKYUUR
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.
UHB·SKYUUR→uhb·SKYUUR
03
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 "obscure" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "SKYUUR" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "uhb-SKYUUR" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the first syllable in "obscure" 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 "uhb-SKYUUR" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
How do I pronounce the R in "obscure"?
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 "obscure" 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 "uhb-SKYUUR" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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