How to pronounce bounced in American English

IPA /baʊnst/ Syllables 1 · bownst Stress 1st syllable

BOWNST

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Americans pronounce bounced as BOWNST (/baʊnst/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The ball bounced off the concrete wall".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "bounced".

1 syllable, 5 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

b/b/

Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.

ow/aʊ/

Start with a dropped jaw and flat tongue. Glide into a relaxed, slightly rounded lip position as the back of the tongue stretches up.

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.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

t/t/

Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Keep your jaw relaxed. Stop the air, then release with a puff.

In real conversation

Hear "bounced" in the wild.

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

"The ball bounced off the concrete wall."

dhuh BAHL BOWNST AHF dhuh KAHN·kreet WAHL

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Questions

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