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 separating in American English
SEH·puh·ray·tuhng
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Americans pronounce separating as SEH-puh-ray-tuhng (/ˈsɛpəˌreɪɾɪŋ/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "separating".
4 syllables, 9 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
eh/ɛ/
Drop your jaw moderately. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and lift the mid-front part slightly toward the roof.
p/p/
Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
r/r/
SyllabicThe schwa before R disappears — R becomes the vowel of the syllable. This is the 'er' sound without a distinct vowel before it.
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.
t/t/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Don't stop the airflow — just a quick tap.
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.
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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 SEH — keep everything else short and quick.
seh·PUH·RAY·TUHNG→SEH·puh·RAY·tuhng
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.
SEH·PUH·ray·tuhng→SEH·puh·RAY·tuhng
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "separating" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SEH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SEH-puh-ray-tuhng" 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 "separating"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "separating" sounds closer to "SEH-puh-ray-tuhng" 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 second syllable in "separating" 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 "SEH-puh-ray-tuhng" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "separating" 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 "SEH-puh-ray-tuhng" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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