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 roadblocks in American English
ROHD·blahks
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Americans pronounce roadblocks as ROHD-blahks (/ˈroʊdˌblɑks/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "Let's identify any potential roadblocks and address them proactively".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "roadblocks".
2 syllables, 8 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
oh/oʊ/
Start with your mouth slightly open, then close your jaw slightly as your lips round. Shift your tongue back slightly, then stretch the back up.
d/d/
Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.
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.
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.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, 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.
In real conversation
Hear "roadblocks" in the wild.
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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
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "roadblocks", the "k" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
roadblocks→ROHD·BLAHKS
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch ROHD — keep everything else short and quick.
rohd·BLAHKS→ROHD·BLAHKS
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "roadblocks" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "ROHD" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "ROHD-blahks" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "roadblocks" 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 "ROHD-blahks" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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