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 sticky in American English
STIH·kee
Start here
Americans pronounce sticky as STIH-kee (/ˈstɪki/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The bottom of the bottle is sticky".
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "sticky" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "sticky".
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.
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.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
Find another
Looking for a different word or sentence?
Search the entire library
/
Press / anywhere to focus the search box.
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 STIH — keep everything else short and quick.
stih·KEE→STIH·kee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "sticky" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "STIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "STIH-kee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "sticky" 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 "STIH-kee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
Stop reading about "sticky". Start saying it.
SayWaader is the AI pronunciation coach for American English. Practice 5 minutes a day. Get a 5-axes accent assessment. Sound like you live here.