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 sixteen in American English
sihk·STEEN
Start here
Americans pronounce sixteen as sihk-STEEN (/sɪkˈstin/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The package weighs sixteen pounds" or "Please deliver it to apartment sixteen" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "sixteen".
2 syllables, 7 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
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.
t/t/
Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Keep your jaw relaxed. Stop the air, then release with a puff.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
n/n/
Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth behind your teeth. Air flows through your nose.
In real conversation
Hear "sixteen" 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
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the second syllable, not the others. Stretch STEEN — keep everything else short and quick.
SIHK·steen→sihk·STEEN
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "sixteen" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "STEEN" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "sihk-STEEN" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "sixteen" 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 "sihk-STEEN" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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