How to pronounce half in American English

IPA /hæf/ Syllables 1 · haf Stress 1st syllable

HAF

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Americans pronounce half as HAF (/hæf/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The substitute player entered the game in the second half".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "half".

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

h/h/

Push a stream of air from your throat through your open mouth. No tongue or lip contact.

a/æ/

Drop the jaw noticeably. Keep the body of the tongue low and forward, and don't let the back of the tongue raise toward the soft palate. Pull the lip corners back slightly, almost a starting smile.

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 "half" in the wild.

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

"The substitute player entered the game in the second half."

dhuh SUHB·stuh·toot PLAY·er EHN·terd dhuh GAYM ihn dhuh SEH·kuhnd HAF

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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