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 sympathetic in American English
sihm·puh·THEH·tuhk
Start here
Americans pronounce sympathetic as sihm-puh-THEH-tuhk (/ˌsɪmpəˈθɛɾək/). Stress falls on the third syllable — keep everything else short and quick.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "sympathetic".
4 syllables, 10 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
p/p/
Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
th/θ/
Place the very tip of your tongue slightly between your teeth. Blow air gently around it without 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.
t/t/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Don't stop the airflow — just a quick tap.
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.
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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 third syllable, not the others. Stretch THEH — keep everything else short and quick.
SIHM·PUH·theh·TUHK→SIHM·puh·THEH·tuhk
02
Pronouncing the unstressed 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.
sihm·PUH·THEH·tuhk→SIHM·puh·THEH·tuhk
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "sympathetic" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the third syllable — say "THEH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "sihm-puh-THEH-tuhk" 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 "sympathetic"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "sympathetic" sounds closer to "sihm-puh-THEH-tuhk" 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 second syllable in "sympathetic" 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 "sihm-puh-THEH-tuhk" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "sympathetic" 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 "sihm-puh-THEH-tuhk" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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