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.
How to pronounce tendencies in American English
TEHN·duhn·seez
Start here
Americans pronounce tendencies as TEHN-duhn-seez (/ˈtɛndənsiz/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "Democratic institutions must be protected from authoritarian tendencies".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "tendencies".
3 syllables, 9 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
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.
d/d/
Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
n/n/
SyllabicThe schwa before N disappears — N becomes the vowel of the syllable. Go straight from the previous consonant to N.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
z/z/
Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.
In real conversation
Hear "tendencies" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
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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
Inserting a vowel before the syllabic consonant.
In "tendencies", the short unstressed vowel before "n" disappears — the schwa is absorbed and the "n" becomes the syllable nucleus on its own. Schwa is absorbed — consonant becomes the syllable nucleus.
tendencies→TEHN·duhn·seez
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch TEHN — keep everything else short and quick.
tehn·DUHN·SEEZ→TEHN·duhn·seez
03
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.
TEHN·DUHN·seez→TEHN·duhn·seez
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "tendencies" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "TEHN" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "TEHN-duhn-seez" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "tendencies" 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 "TEHN-duhn-seez" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "tendencies" 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 "TEHN-duhn-seez" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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