How to pronounce clay in American English

IPA /kleɪ/ Syllables 1 · klay Stress 1st syllable

KLAY

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Americans pronounce clay as KLAY (/kleɪ/). You'll hear it in sentences like "She attends a pottery workshop to learn how to throw clay".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "clay".

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

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.

ay/eɪ/

Start with your jaw slightly open and the front of your tongue forward and slightly up. Glide upward, your jaw closes a little more and your tongue arches higher toward the roof of the mouth.

In real conversation

Hear "clay" in the wild.

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"She attends a pottery workshop to learn how to throw clay."

shee uh·TEHNDZ uh PAH·duh·ree WURK·shahp tuh LURN HOW tuh THROH KLAY

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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