How to pronounce blew in American English

IPA /blu/ Syllables 1 · bloo Stress 1st syllable

BLOO

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Americans pronounce blew as BLOO (/blu/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The wind blew all the leaves away" or "The strong wind blew the leaves away" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "blew".

1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

b/b/

Press your lips together, 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.

oo/u/

Round your lips into a tight circle. Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, slightly raised.

In real conversation

Hear "blew" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"The cool breeze blew through the spruce trees."

dhuh KOOL BREEZ BLOO throo dhuh SPROOS TREEZ

"The referee blew the whistle to signal a foul."

dhuh reh·fuh·REE BLOO dhuh WIH·suhl tuh SIHG·nuhl uh FOWL

"The strong wind blew the leaves away."

dhuh STRAHNG WIHND BLOO dhuh LEEVZ uh·WAY

"The wind blew all the leaves away."

dhuh WIHND BLOO AHL dhuh LEEVZ uh·WAY

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "blew" 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 "BLOO" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.