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 steady in American English
STEH·dee
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Americans pronounce steady as STEH-dee (/ˈstɛdi/). In "steady", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. This is called the Flap T, a hallmark of natural-sounding American speech. So instead of STEH·tee, you get STEH·dee. Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "Bender kept a steady level of energy during the trek" or "The drummer keeps the beat steady throughout the performance" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "steady".
2 syllables, 5 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.
eh/ɛ/
Drop your jaw moderately. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and lift the mid-front part slightly toward the roof.
d/d/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Same as Flap T — a quick tap without stopping airflow.
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 "steady" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
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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
Saying a hard "T" in the middle.
In "steady", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. /t/ or /d/ becomes a quick tap [ɾ] — sounds like a soft D. The tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth.
STEH-tee→STEH·dee
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch STEH — keep everything else short and quick.
steh·DEE→STEH·dee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "steady" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "STEH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "STEH-dee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why doesn't the T sound like a T in "steady"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "steady" sounds closer to "STEH-dee" than to a crisp-T pronunciation. This is the flap-T rule, one of the most distinctive sounds of casual American speech.
Is the American pronunciation of "steady" 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 "STEH-dee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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