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 smoothly in American English
SMOODH·lee
Start here
Americans pronounce smoothly as SMOODH-lee (/ˈsmuðli/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "I breathe smoothly" or "The relay team passed the baton smoothly without dropping it" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "smoothly".
2 syllables, 6 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
oo/u/
Round your lips into a tight circle. Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, slightly raised.
dh/ð/
Place your tongue tip between or behind your front teeth, turn your vocal cords on, and push air through the gap.
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.
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 "smoothly" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"He works as a stage manager ensuring everything runs smoothly."
hee WURKS uhz uh STAYJ MA·nuh·jer uhn·SHUUR·uhng EHV·ree·thuhng RUHNZ SMOODH·lee
"I breathe smoothly."
ahy BREEDH SMOODH·lee
"The relay team passed the baton smoothly without dropping it."
dhuh REE·lay TEEM PAST dhuh buh·TAHN SMOODH·lee wih·DHOWT DRAH·puhng iht
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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 SMOODH — keep everything else short and quick.
smoodh·LEE→SMOODH·lee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "smoothly" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SMOODH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SMOODH-lee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "smoothly" 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 "SMOODH-lee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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