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 starfish in American English
STAR·fihsh
Start here
Americans pronounce starfish as STAR-fihsh (/ˈstɑrˌfɪʃ/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "He found a starfish in a tide pool on the shore".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "starfish".
2 syllables, 6 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
ar/ɑr/
Open wide for the 'ah' vowel. Lift the tongue back and up while flaring the lips for the 'r'.
f/f/
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
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.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without 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 STAR — keep everything else short and quick.
star·FIHSH→STAR·FIHSH
02
Pronouncing the "R" too clearly.
Americans use a relaxed retroflex R — the tongue curls back rather than rolling. The R is one continuous sound with the vowel before it, not two separate sounds.
… (no R)→… r (curl the tongue)
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "starfish" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "STAR" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "STAR-fihsh" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "starfish"?
Americans use a relaxed retroflex R: the tongue curls back rather than rolling, and the R is one continuous sound with the vowel before it — not two separate sounds. Don't try to pronounce a separate vowel followed by a separate R. Treat them as a single shape.
Is the American pronunciation of "starfish" 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 "STAR-fihsh" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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