k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
How to pronounce cloud in American English
KLOWD
Start here
Americans pronounce cloud as KLOWD (/klaʊd/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The cloud surrounded the mountain house around noon" or "Cloud computing has revolutionized how businesses store information" — more examples below.
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "cloud" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "cloud".
1 syllable, 4 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
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.
d/d/
Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.
In real conversation
Hear "cloud" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
Find another
Looking for a different word or sentence?
Search the entire library
/
Press / anywhere to focus the search box.
Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "cloud", the "d" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
cloud→KLOWD
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "cloud" 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 "KLOWD" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
Stop reading about "cloud". Start saying it.
SayWaader is the AI pronunciation coach for American English. Practice 5 minutes a day. Get a 5-axes accent assessment. Sound like you live here.