uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
How to pronounce unclog in American English
uhn·KLAHG
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Americans pronounce unclog as uhn-KLAHG (/ənˈklɑg/). Stress falls on the second syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "I need to unclog the drain before it becomes a bigger problem".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "unclog".
2 syllables, 6 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, 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.
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.
g/g/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate. Add vocal cord vibration, then release.
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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
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "unclog", the "g" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
unclog→uhn·KLAHG
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the second syllable, not the others. Stretch KLAHG — keep everything else short and quick.
UHN·klahg→uhn·KLAHG
03
Pronouncing the first 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.
UHN·KLAHG→uhn·KLAHG
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "unclog" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the second syllable — say "KLAHG" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "uhn-KLAHG" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the first syllable in "unclog" 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 "uhn-KLAHG" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "unclog" 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 "uhn-KLAHG" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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