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 spacious in American English
SPAY·shuhs
Start here
Americans pronounce spacious as SPAY-shuhs (/ˈspeɪʃəs/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "She rearranged the furniture to make the room feel more spacious".
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "spacious" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "spacious".
2 syllables, 6 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
p/p/
Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.
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.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
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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 SPAY — keep everything else short and quick.
spay·SHUHS→SPAY·shuhs
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.
SPAY·SHUHS→SPAY·shuhs
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "spacious" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SPAY" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SPAY-shuhs" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "spacious" 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 "SPAY-shuhs" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "spacious" 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 "SPAY-shuhs" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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