h/h/
Push a stream of air from your throat through your open mouth. No tongue or lip contact.
How to pronounce hobbies in American English
HAH·beez
Start here
Americans pronounce hobbies as HAH-beez (/ˈhɑbiz/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick.
Now you try.
Record yourself saying "hobbies" and play it back. The mic stays on your device — nothing's uploaded.
Sound by sound
Every sound in "hobbies".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then 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.
b/b/
Press your lips together, add vocal cord vibration, then release.
ee/i/
Pull the corners of your lips back slightly. Arch the middle-front of your tongue high toward the roof of the mouth.
z/z/
Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.
Find another
Looking for a different word or sentence?
Search the entire library
/
Press / anywhere to focus the search box.
Watch out
Common pronunciation mistakes in American English.
The textbook way isn't wrong — it's just not how anyone actually says it.
01
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch HAH — keep everything else short and quick.
hah·BEEZ→HAH·beez
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "hobbies" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "HAH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "HAH-beez" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Is the American pronunciation of "hobbies" 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 "HAH-beez" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
Stop reading about "hobbies". Start saying it.
SayWaader is the AI pronunciation coach for American English. Practice 5 minutes a day. Get a 5-axes accent assessment. Sound like you live here.