How to pronounce flow in American English

IPA /floʊ/ Syllables 1 · floh Stress 1st syllable

FLOH

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Americans pronounce flow as FLOH (/floʊ/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The traffic flow was affected by the fire" or "Electricity is the flow of electrons through a conductor" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "flow".

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

f/f/

Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.

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.

oh/oʊ/

Start with your mouth slightly open, then close your jaw slightly as your lips round. Shift your tongue back slightly, then stretch the back up.

In real conversation

Hear "flow" in the wild.

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

"Electricity is the flow of electrons through a conductor."

uh·leh·KTRIH·suh·tee ihz dhuh FLOH uhv ih·LEH·ktrahnz throo uh kuhn·DUHK·ter

"I need to work on transitions between paragraphs for better flow."

ahy NEED tuh WURK ahn tran·ZIH·shuhnz buh·TWEEN PAIR·uh·grafs fer BEH·der FLOH

"The traffic flow was affected by the fire."

dhuh TRA·fuhk FLOH wuhz uh·FEHK·tuhd bahy dhuh FAHY·er

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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