How to pronounce how's in American English

IPA /haʊz/ Syllables 1 · howz Stress 1st syllable

HOWZ

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Americans pronounce how's as HOWZ (/haʊz/). You'll hear it in sentences like "How's it going?" or "How's your new apartment?" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "how's".

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.

z/z/

Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.

In real conversation

Hear "how's" in the wild.

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

"How's it going?"

HOWZ iht GOH·ing

"How's your new apartment?"

HOWZ yer noo uh·PART·muhnt

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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