m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
How to pronounce minutes in American English
MIH·nuhts
Start here
Americans pronounce minutes as MIH-nuhts (/ˈmɪnəts/). Stress falls on the first syllable — keep everything else short and quick. You'll hear it in sentences like "He'll be back in fifteen minutes" or "The bank is closing in ten minutes" — more examples below.
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "minutes".
2 syllables, 6 sounds. Tap a syllable to jump to its row, then explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
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.
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.
uh/ʌ/
Relax your lips, jaw, and tongue completely. Drop your jaw slightly and keep the tongue neutral.
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.
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 "minutes" in the wild.
Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.
"Can we push back the meeting time by about thirty minutes?"
kuhn wee PUUSH BAK dhuh MEE·duhng TAHYM bahy uh·BOWT THUR·dee MIH·nuhts
"Can you set a timer for forty-five minutes?"
kuhn yoo SEHT uh TAHY·mer fer FOR·dee FAHYV MIH·nuhts
"He'll be back in fifteen minutes."
heel bee BAK ihn fihf·TEEN MIH·nuhts
"I think we should leave in thirty minutes."
ahy thihngk wee shuud LEEV uhn THUR·dee MIH·nuhts
"I try to read for thirty minutes every morning."
ahy TRAHY tuh reed fer THUR·dee MIH·nuhts EHV·ree MOR·nuhng
"I will wait for eight minutes to check my weight."
ahy wihl WAYT fer AYT MIH·nuhts tuh CHEHK mahy WAYT
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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 MIH — keep everything else short and quick.
mih·NUHTS→MIH·nuhts
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.
MIH·NUHTS→MIH·nuhts
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
How is "minutes" stressed in American English?
Stress falls on the first syllable — say "MIH" with a longer, fuller vowel and keep every other syllable short and quick. The respell "MIH-nuhts" marks the stressed syllable in capitals so the rhythm is easy to read at a glance.
Why does the second syllable in "minutes" 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 "MIH-nuhts" shows the reduced form so you can hear the casual rhythm directly.
Is the American pronunciation of "minutes" 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 "MIH-nuhts" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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