s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
How to pronounce scholarship in American English
SKAH·ler·shihp
Start here
Americans pronounce scholarship as SKAH-ler-shihp (/ˈskɑlərˌʃɪp/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "She received a full scholarship for her outstanding academic record" or "The scholarship committee will announce the recipients after graduation" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "scholarship".
3 syllables, 8 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
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.
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.
er/ər/
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
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.
p/p/
Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.
In real conversation
Hear "scholarship" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"She received a full scholarship for her outstanding academic record."
shee ruh·SEEVD uh FUUL SKAH·ler·shihp fer her owt·STAN·duhng a·kuh·DEH·muhk REH·kerd
"The scholarship committee will announce the recipients after graduation."
dhuh SKAH·ler·shihp kuh·MIH·dee wihl uh·NOWNS dhuh ruh·SIH·pee·uhnts AF·ter gra·joo·AY·shuhn
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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 "scholarship", the "p" 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.
scholarship→SKAH·ler·SHIHP
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch SKAH — keep everything else short and quick.
skah·LER·SHIHP→SKAH·ler·SHIHP
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 "scholarship" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SKAH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SKAH-ler-shihp" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "scholarship"?
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 "scholarship" 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 "SKAH-ler-shihp" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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