ih/ɪ/
Drop your jaw slightly with relaxed lips. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and arch the top-front toward the roof.
How to pronounce income in American English
IHN·kuhm
Start here
Americans pronounce income as IHN-kuhm (/ˈɪnˌkʌm/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "Income inequality has widened considerably over the past decades" or "The survey asks about your age, your occupation, and your income" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "income".
2 syllables, 5 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
n/n/
Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth behind your teeth. Air flows through your nose.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
m/m/
SyllabicThe schwa before M disappears — M becomes the vowel of the syllable. Go straight from the previous consonant to M.
In real conversation
Hear "income" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"I created a monthly budget to track my income and expenses carefully."
ahy kree·AY·duhd uh MUHNTH·lee BUH·juht tuh TRAK mahy IHN·kuhm and uhk·SPEHN·suhz KAIR·fuh·lee
"Income inequality has widened considerably over the past decades."
IHN·kuhm uhn·uh·KWAH·luh·dee huhz WAHY·duhnd kuhn·SIH·der·uh·blee OH·ver dhuh PAST DEH·kaydz
"The survey asks about your age, your occupation, and your income."
dhuh SUR·vay ASKS uh·BOWT yer AYJ yer ahk·yuh·PAY·shuhn and yer IHN·kuhm
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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
Stressing the wrong syllable.
Stress falls on the first syllable, not the others. Stretch IHN — keep everything else short and quick.
ihn·KUHM→IHN·KUHM
02
Pronouncing the unstressed syllable too fully.
Don't pronounce the first syllable too fully. The unstressed syllable reduces to a schwa — the lazy "uh" sound — in casual speech.
IHN·KUHM→IHN·KUHM
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "income" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "IHN" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "IHN-kuhm" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "income" reduce to "uh"?
Unstressed syllables in American English collapse toward a schwa — a lazy, neutral "uh" sound. The full vowel is what textbooks teach, but in actual American speech every unstressed vowel reduces. The respell "IHN-kuhm" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "income" 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 "IHN-kuhm" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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