How to pronounce knocked in American English

IPA /nɑkt/ Syllables 1 · nahkt Stress 1st syllable

NAHKT

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Americans pronounce knocked as NAHKT (/nɑkt/). It's 4 sounds in 1 syllable. Every consonant in the cluster gets its turn — no shortcuts in casual American speech.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "knocked".

1 syllable, 4 sounds. 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.

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.

k/k/

Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.

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.

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Questions

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