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 tissue in American English
TIH·shoo
Start here
Americans pronounce tissue as TIH-shoo (/ˈtɪʃu/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "She works in a pathology lab analyzing tissue samples".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "tissue".
2 syllables, 4 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.
sh/ʃ/
Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.
oo/u/
Round your lips into a tight circle. Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, slightly raised.
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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 TIH — keep everything else short and quick.
tih·SHOO→TIH·shoo
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "tissue" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "TIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "TIH-shoo" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "tissue" 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 "TIH-shoo" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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