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 sunflower in American English
SUHN·flow·er
Start here
Americans pronounce sunflower as SUHN-flow-er (/ˈsʌnˌflaʊər/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The sunflower turns its head to follow the sun across the sky".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "sunflower".
3 syllables, 7 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.
n/n/
Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth behind your teeth. Air flows through your nose.
f/f/
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
l/l/
Place the tip of your tongue against the alveolar ridge just behind your top front teeth, the same contact point as /t/, /d/, and /n/. The difference is what happens to the air: for /l/, you let it flow continuously around the <em>sides</em> of the tongue (that's why /l/ is called a lateral). Turn your voice on the whole time. Lips stay relaxed, no rounding or flaring. For the Dark L variant at the end of a syllable, also pull the back of the tongue up and back toward the soft palate.
ow/aʊ/
Start with a dropped jaw and flat tongue. Glide into a relaxed, slightly rounded lip position as the back of the tongue stretches up.
er/ər/
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
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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 SUHN — keep everything else short and quick.
suhn·FLOW·ER→SUHN·FLOW·er
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 "sunflower" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "SUHN" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "SUHN-flow-er" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
How do I pronounce the R in "sunflower"?
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 "sunflower" 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 "SUHN-flow-er" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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