k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
How to pronounce cough in American English
KAHF
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Americans pronounce cough as KAHF (/kɑf/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The rough cough was enough to frighten Fred" or "I should probably see a specialist about this persistent cough" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "cough".
1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
ah/ɑ/
Relax your lips and drop your jaw significantly. The tongue tip lightly touches behind the bottom front teeth and the back part of the tongue presses down a little to create more dark space in the back of the mouth.
f/f/
Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.
In real conversation
Hear "cough" in the wild.
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Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "cough" 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 "KAHF" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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