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 we've in American English
weev
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Americans pronounce we've as weev (/wiv/). You'll hear it in sentences like "We've been waiting here for quite a while".
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Every sound in "we've".
1 syllable, 3 sounds. 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.
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.
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Questions
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Is the American pronunciation of "we've" 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 "weev" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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