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 triathlon in American English
trahy·ATH·lahn
Start here
Americans pronounce triathlon as trahy-ATH-lahn (/traɪˈæθlɑn/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "He is training for a triathlon next summer".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "triathlon".
3 syllables, 8 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
r/r/
Curl or bunch your tongue without letting the tip touch the roof of your mouth. Brace the sides of your tongue against your upper back teeth, and round your lips slightly.
ahy/aɪ/
Start with your jaw open wide and your tongue resting low and flat. Glide the front of your tongue up toward the roof of your mouth as your jaw closes halfway.
a/æ/
Drop the jaw noticeably. Keep the body of the tongue low and forward, and don't let the back of the tongue raise toward the soft palate. Pull the lip corners back slightly, almost a starting smile.
th/θ/
Place the very tip of your tongue slightly between your teeth. Blow air gently around it without voicing.
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.
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.
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.
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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 second syllable, not the others. Stretch ATH — keep everything else short and quick.
TRAHY·ath·LAHN→trahy·ATH·lahn
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "triathlon" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "ATH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "trahy-ATH-lahn" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "triathlon" 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 "trahy-ATH-lahn" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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