k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
How to pronounce cloudy in American English
KLOW·dee
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Americans pronounce cloudy as KLOW-dee (/ˈklaʊdi/). In "cloudy", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. This is called the Flap T, a hallmark of natural-sounding American speech. So instead of KLOW·tee, you get KLOW·dee. Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "She prefers sunny days over cloudy or rainy weather".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "cloudy".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then 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/
FlapQuickly bounce the front of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Same as Flap T — a quick tap without stopping airflow.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
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Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Saying a hard "T" in the middle.
In "cloudy", the "t" between vowels sounds like a quick "d" — the tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth. /t/ or /d/ becomes a quick tap [ɾ] — sounds like a soft D. The tongue briefly taps the ridge behind the upper teeth.
KLOW-tee→KLOW·dee
02
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch KLOW — keep everything else short and quick.
klow·DEE→KLOW·dee
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "cloudy" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "KLOW" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "KLOW-dee" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why doesn't the T sound like a T in "cloudy"?
In American English, when /t/ sits between two vowels with the second one unstressed, it turns into a quick D-like flap. So "cloudy" sounds closer to "KLOW-dee" than to a crisp-T pronunciation. This is the flap-T rule, one of the most distinctive sounds of casual American speech.
Is the American pronunciation of "cloudy" 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 "KLOW-dee" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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