p/p/
Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.
How to pronounce picking in American English
PIH·kuhng
Start here
Americans pronounce picking as PIH-kuhng (/ˈpɪkəŋ/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The wind is picking up, which might bring cooler temperatures" or "She has a natural aptitude for picking up new languages quickly" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "picking".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
ng/ŋ/
Lift the back of your tongue to the soft palate. Lower your soft palate to let air flow through your nose.
In real conversation
Hear "picking" 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 first syllable, not the others. Stretch PIH — keep everything else short and quick.
pih·KUHNG→PIH·kuhng
02
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.
PIH·KUHNG→PIH·kuhng
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "picking" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "PIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "PIH-kuhng" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "picking" 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 "PIH-kuhng" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "picking" 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 "PIH-kuhng" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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