r/r/
Curl or bunch your tongue without letting the tip touch the roof of your mouth. Brace the sides of your tongue against your upper back teeth, and round your lips slightly.
How to pronounce retaliation in American English
ruh·ta·lee·AY·shuhn
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Americans pronounce retaliation as ruh-ta-lee-AY-shuhn (/rəˌɾæliˈeɪʃən/). Stress falls on the fourth syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The law protects whistleblowers from retaliation by their employers".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "retaliation".
5 syllables, 10 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
t/t/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Don't stop the airflow — just a quick tap.
a/æ/
Drop the jaw noticeably. Keep the body of the tongue low and forward, and don't let the back of the tongue raise toward the soft palate. Pull the lip corners back slightly, almost a starting smile.
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.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
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 "retaliation", 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.
retaliation→ruh·TA·lee·AY·shuhn
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the fourth syllable, not the others. Stretch AY — keep everything else short and quick.
RUH·TA·LEE·ay·SHUHN→ruh·TA·lee·AY·shuhn
03
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.
RUH·ta·lee·AY·shuhn→ruh·TA·lee·AY·shuhn
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "retaliation" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the fourth syllable — say "AY" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "ruh-ta-lee-AY-shuhn" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why doesn't the T sound like a T in "retaliation"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "retaliation" sounds closer to "ruh-ta-lee-AY-shuhn" than to a crisp-T pronunciation. This is the flap-T rule, one of the most distinctive sounds of casual American speech.
Why does the first syllable in "retaliation" 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 "ruh-ta-lee-AY-shuhn" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "retaliation" 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 "ruh-ta-lee-AY-shuhn" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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