How to pronounce clouds in American English

IPA /klaʊdz/ Syllables 1 · klowdz Stress 1st syllable

KLOWDZ

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Americans pronounce clouds as KLOWDZ (/klaʊdz/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The sun came out from under the clouds" or "Those clouds look like they might bring rain" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "clouds".

1 syllable, 5 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.

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.

z/z/

Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.

In real conversation

Hear "clouds" in the wild.

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

"The sun came out from under the clouds."

dhuh SUHN KAYM OWT fruhm UHN·der dhuh KLOWDZ

"Those clouds look like they might bring rain."

dhohz KLOWDZ LUUK LAHYK dhay mahyt BRIHNG RAYN

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Questions

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