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 sixty in American English
SIHK·stee
Start here
Americans pronounce sixty as SIHK-stee (/ˈsɪksti/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "There are sixty seconds in a minute" or "The order is for sixty items, correct?" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "sixty".
2 syllables, 6 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.
In real conversation
Hear "sixty" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"The order is for sixty items, correct?"
dhee OR·der ihz fer SIHK·stee AHY·duhmz kuh·REHKT
"The planet orbits the sun once every three hundred and sixty-five days."
dhuh PLA·nuht OR·buhts dhuh SUHN WUHNS EHV·ree THREE HUHN·druhd and SIHK·stee FAHYV DAYZ
"There are sixty seconds in a minute."
DHAIR er SIHK·stee SEH·kuhndz ihn uh MIH·nuht
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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 SIHK — keep everything else short and quick.
sihk·STEE→SIHK·stee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "sixty" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SIHK" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SIHK-stee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "sixty" 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-stee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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