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 sunglasses in American English
SUHN·gla·suhz
Start here
Americans pronounce sunglasses as SUHN-gla-suhz (/ˈsʌnˌglæsəz/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "Don't forget to put on your sunglasses".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "sunglasses".
3 syllables, 9 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.
g/g/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, then release.
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.
a/æ/
Drop the jaw noticeably. Keep the body of the tongue low and forward, and don't let the back of the tongue raise toward the soft palate. Pull the lip corners back slightly, almost a starting smile.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
z/z/
Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.
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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·GLA·SUHZ→SUHN·GLA·suhz
02
Pronouncing the unstressed syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the second syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
SUHN·gla·SUHZ→SUHN·GLA·suhz
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "sunglasses" 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-gla-suhz" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the third syllable in "sunglasses" 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 "SUHN-gla-suhz" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "sunglasses" 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-gla-suhz" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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