How to pronounce laugh in American English

IPA /læf/ Syllables 1 · laf Stress 1st syllable

LAF

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Americans pronounce laugh as LAF (/læf/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Love to laugh" or "Whenever I see that movie, it always makes me laugh" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "laugh".

1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

l/l/

Place the tip of your tongue against the alveolar ridge just behind your top front teeth, the same contact point as /t/, /d/, and /n/. The difference is what happens to the air: for /l/, you let it flow continuously around the <em>sides</em> of the tongue (that's why /l/ is called a lateral). Turn your voice on the whole time. Lips stay relaxed, no rounding or flaring. For the Dark L variant at the end of a syllable, also pull the back of the tongue up and back toward the soft palate.

a/æ/

Drop the jaw noticeably. Keep the body of the tongue low and forward, and don't let the back of the tongue raise toward the soft palate. Pull the lip corners back slightly, almost a starting smile.

f/f/

Lift your bottom lip to touch the very bottom of your top front teeth. Blow air through this contact point without voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "laugh" in the wild.

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

"Love to laugh."

LUHV tuh LAF

"Whenever I see that movie, it always makes me laugh."

wehn·EH·ver ahy SEE dhat MOO·vee iht AHL·wayz MAYKS mee LAF

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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