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 successfully in American English
suhk·SEHS·fuh·lee
Start here
Americans pronounce successfully as suhk-SEHS-fuh-lee (/səkˈsɛsfəli/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The surgeon performed a complex heart transplant successfully" or "Conservation efforts have helped restore the local ecosystem successfully" — more examples below.
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "successfully" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "successfully".
4 syllables, 10 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
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.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
f/f/
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
l/l/
SyllabicThe schwa before L disappears — L becomes the vowel of the syllable. Go straight from the previous consonant to a Dark L.
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 "successfully" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"Conservation efforts have helped restore the local ecosystem successfully."
kahn·ser·VAY·shuhn EH·ferts huhv HEHLPT ruh·STOR dhuh LOH·kuhl EE·koh·sihs·tuhm suhk·SEHS·fuh·lee
"The surgeon performed a complex heart transplant successfully."
dhuh SUR·juhn per·FORMD uh KAHM·plehks HART TRAN·splant suhk·SEHS·fuh·lee
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 second syllable, not the others. Stretch SEHS — keep everything else short and quick.
SUHK·sehs·FUH·LEE→suhk·SEHS·fuh·lee
02
Pronouncing the first 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.
SUHK·SEHS·fuh·lee→suhk·SEHS·fuh·lee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "successfully" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "SEHS" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "suhk-SEHS-fuh-lee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the first syllable in "successfully" 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 "suhk-SEHS-fuh-lee" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "successfully" 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 "suhk-SEHS-fuh-lee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
Stop reading about "successfully". 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.