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 sustainability in American English
suh·stay·nuh·BIH·luh·tee
Start here
Americans pronounce sustainability as suh-stay-nuh-BIH-luh-tee (/səˌsteɪnəˈbɪləɾi/). In "sustainability", 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 small move that separates 'classroom' from 'native'. It comes out as suh·STAY·nuh·BIH·luh·tee. Stress falls on the fourth syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The government announced ambitious sustainability targets for industry" or "Sustainability means meeting our needs without compromising future generations" — more examples below.
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "sustainability" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "sustainability".
6 syllables, 13 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.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
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.
ay/eɪ/
Start with your jaw slightly open and the front of your tongue forward and slightly up. Glide upward, your jaw closes a little more and your tongue arches higher toward the roof of the mouth.
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.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
b/b/
Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.
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.
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.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
t/t/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Don't stop the airflow — just a quick tap.
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 "sustainability" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"Sustainability means meeting our needs without compromising future generations."
suh·stay·nuh·BIH·luh·tee meenz MEE·duhng owr NEEDZ wih·DHOWT KAHM·pruh·mahy·zuhng FYOO·cher jeh·nuh·RAY·shuhnz
"The government announced ambitious sustainability targets for industry."
dhuh GUH·vern·muhnt uh·NOWNST am·BIH·shuhs suh·stay·nuh·BIH·luh·tee TAR·guhts fer IHN·duh·stree
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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 "sustainability", 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.
suh-stay-nuh-BIH-luh-tee→suh·STAY·nuh·BIH·luh·tee
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the fourth syllable, not the others. Stretch BIH — keep everything else short and quick.
SUH·STAY·NUH·bih·LUH·TEE→suh·STAY·nuh·BIH·luh·tee
03
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.
SUH·stay·nuh·BIH·luh·tee→suh·STAY·nuh·BIH·luh·tee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "sustainability" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the fourth syllable — say "BIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "suh-stay-nuh-BIH-luh-tee" 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 "sustainability"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "sustainability" sounds closer to "suh-stay-nuh-BIH-luh-tee" than to a crisp-T pronunciation. This is the flap-T rule, one of the most distinctive sounds of casual American speech.
Why does the first syllable in "sustainability" 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 "suh-stay-nuh-BIH-luh-tee" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "sustainability" 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 "suh-stay-nuh-BIH-luh-tee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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