w/w/
Round your lips into a tight circle. Lift the back of your tongue toward the soft palate and add voice.
How to pronounce weekly in American English
WEE·klee
Start here
Americans pronounce weekly as WEE-klee (/ˈwikli/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "We need to reduce our weekly expenses" or "He sells his produce at the weekly farmers market" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "weekly".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
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.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
In real conversation
Hear "weekly" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"He sells his produce at the weekly farmers market."
hee SEHLZ hihz PROH·doos uht dhuh WEE·klee FAR·merz MAR·kuht
"The team agreed to meet weekly until the launch date."
dhuh TEEM uh·GREED tuh MEET WEE·klee uhn·TIHL dhuh LAHNCH DAYT
"The weekly specials are usually advertised in the front window."
dhuh WEE·klee SPEH·shuhlz er YOO·zhoo·uh·lee AD·ver·tahyzd ihn dhuh FRUHNT WIHN·doh
"We need to reduce our weekly expenses."
wee NEED tuh ruh·DOOS OW·er WEE·klee uhk·SPEHN·suhz
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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 WEE — keep everything else short and quick.
wee·KLEE→WEE·klee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "weekly" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "WEE" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "WEE-klee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "weekly" 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 "WEE-klee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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