h/h/
Push a stream of air from your throat through your open mouth. No tongue or lip contact.
How to pronounce hot in American English
HAHT
Start here
Americans pronounce hot as HAHT (/hɑt/). You'll hear it in sentences like "It is hot" or "The coffee is very hot" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "hot".
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.
t/t/
Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Keep your jaw relaxed. Stop the air, then release with a puff.
In real conversation
Hear "hot" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"I can't believe how hot today is."
ahy KANT buh·LEEV HOW HAHT tuh·DAY ihz
"It is hot."
iht ihz HAHT
"It's almost always hot and humid in August."
ihts AHL·mohst AHL·wayz HAHT and HYOO·muhd ihn AH·guhst
"The climate of the region is characterized by hot summers."
dhuh KLAHY·muht uhv dhuh REE·juhn ihz KA·ruhk·tuh·rahyzd bahy HAHT SUH·merz
"The coffee is very hot."
dhuh KAH·fee ihz VEH·ree HAHT
"The desert is hot and dry during the day but cold at night."
dhuh DEH·zert ihz HAHT and DRAHY DUUR·uhng dhuh DAY buht KOHLD uht NAHYT
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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
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "hot", the "t" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
hot→HAHT
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "hot" 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 "HAHT" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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