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 seafood in American English
SEE·food
Start here
Americans pronounce seafood as SEE-food (/ˈsiˌfud/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "We had amazing seafood for dinner last night".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "seafood".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
f/f/
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
oo/u/
Round your lips into a tight circle. Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, slightly raised.
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.
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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 "seafood", the "d" 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.
seafood→SEE·FOOD
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch SEE — keep everything else short and quick.
see·FOOD→SEE·FOOD
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "seafood" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SEE" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SEE-food" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "seafood" 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 "SEE-food" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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