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 tolerance in American English
TAH·ler·uhns
Start here
Americans pronounce tolerance as TAH-ler-uhns (/ˈtɑlərəns/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The company has a zero tolerance policy for safety violations" or "The robo-advisor suggested a portfolio based on my risk tolerance level" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "tolerance".
3 syllables, 7 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ah/ɑ/
Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.
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.
er/ər/
Relax your mouth and lift the tongue back and up. Keep the lips neutral.
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.
In real conversation
Hear "tolerance" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"The company has a zero tolerance policy for safety violations."
dhuh KUHM·puh·nee huhz uh ZEE·roh TAH·ler·uhns PAH·luh·see fer SAYF·tee vahy·uh·LAY·shuhnz
"The robo-advisor suggested a portfolio based on my risk tolerance level."
dhuh ROH·boh uhd·VAHY·zer suhg·JEH·stuhd uh port·FOH·lee·oh BAYST ahn mahy RIHSK TAH·ler·uhns LEH·vuhl
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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 "tolerance", 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.
tolerance→TAH·ler·uhns
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch TAH — keep everything else short and quick.
tah·LER·UHNS→TAH·ler·uhns
03
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.
TAH·ler·UHNS→TAH·ler·uhns
04
Pronouncing the "R" too clearly.
Americans use a relaxed retroflex R — the tongue curls back rather than rolling. The R is one continuous sound with the vowel before it, not two separate sounds.
… (no R)→… r (curl the tongue)
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "tolerance" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "TAH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "TAH-ler-uhns" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the third syllable in "tolerance" 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 "TAH-ler-uhns" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
How do I pronounce the R in "tolerance"?
Americans use a relaxed retroflex R: the tongue curls back rather than rolling, and the R is one continuous sound with the vowel before it — not two separate sounds. Don't try to pronounce a separate vowel followed by a separate R. Treat them as a single shape.
Is the American pronunciation of "tolerance" 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 "TAH-ler-uhns" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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