How to pronounce house in American English

IPA /haʊs/ Syllables 1 · hows Stress 1st syllable

HOWS

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Americans pronounce house as HOWS (/haʊs/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Get out of the house" or "Hide behind the house" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "house".

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.

ow/aʊ/

Start with a dropped jaw and flat tongue. Glide into a relaxed, slightly rounded lip position as the back of the tongue stretches up.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "house" in the wild.

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

"Get out of the house."

GEHT OWT uhv dhuh HOWS

"He always watches the weather channel before leaving the house."

hee AHL·wayz WAH·chuhz dhuh WEH·dher CHA·nuhl buh·FOR LEE·vuhng dhuh HOWS

"Hide behind the house."

HAHYD buh·HAHYND dhuh HOWS

"The vines climbed up the side of the brick house."

dhuh VAHYNZ KLAHYMD UHP dhuh SAHYD uhv dhuh BRIHK HOWS

"They signed a binding contract to purchase the new house."

dhay SAHYND uh BAHYN·duhng KAHN·trakt tuh PUR·chuhs dhuh noo HOWS

"We knew the bird flew through the new house."

wee NOO dhuh BURD FLOO throo dhuh NOO HOWS

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Questions

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