uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
How to pronounce ugly in American English
UH·glee
Start here
Americans pronounce ugly as UH-glee (/ˈʌɡli/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "The ragged beggar hugged the ugly mug".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "ugly".
2 syllables, 4 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
g/g/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, then release.
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.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
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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 UH — keep everything else short and quick.
uh·GLEE→UH·glee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "ugly" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "UH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "UH-glee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "ugly" 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 "UH-glee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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