v/v/
Lift your bottom lip so its inner edge (where the wet part meets the dry part) touches the very bottom of your top front teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you blow air through.
How to pronounce volleyball in American English
VAH·lee·bahl
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Americans pronounce volleyball as VAH-lee-bahl (/ˈvɑliˌbɑl/). The L in "volleyball" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. This is called the Dark L vs Light L, a small move that separates 'classroom' from 'native'. It comes out as VAH·lee·BAHL. Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "We joined a recreational volleyball league for fun".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "volleyball".
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.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
b/b/
Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.
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/
DarkKeep the tongue tip down and pull the back of the tongue up toward the throat. The 'dark' sound comes from the back.
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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
Treating every L the same.
The L in "volleyball" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. Dark L adds a small schwa-like "uh" before the L. The back of the tongue lifts toward the soft palate.
volleyball→VAH·lee·BAHL
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch VAH — keep everything else short and quick.
vah·LEE·BAHL→VAH·lee·BAHL
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "volleyball" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "VAH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "VAH-lee-bahl" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "volleyball" 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 "VAH-lee-bahl" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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