How to pronounce off in American English

IPA /ɑf/ Syllables 1 · ahf Stress 1st syllable

AHF

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Americans pronounce off as AHF (/ɑf/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Off the roof" or "I turned off the oven, didn't I?" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "off".

1 syllable, 2 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

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.

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 "off" in the wild.

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

"Before you leave, don't forget to turn off the lights."

buh·FOR yoo LEEV DOHNT fer·GEHT tuh TURN AHF dhuh LAHYTS

"Don't forget to turn off the stove before you leave."

DOHNT fer·GEHT tuh TURN AHF dhuh STOHV buh·FOR yuh LEEV

"He lived off campus but came to school for classes daily."

hee LIHVD AHF KAM·puhs buht KAYM tuh SKOOL fer KLA·suhz DAY·lee

"He minimized distractions by turning off notifications during study time."

hee MIH·nuh·mahyzd duh·STRAK·shuhnz bahy TUR·nuhng AHF noh·duh·fuh·KAY·shuhnz DUUR·uhng STUH·dee TAHYM

"I turned off the oven, didn't I?"

ahy TURND AHF dhee UH·vuhn DIH·duhnt ahy

"I want to check both things off my list."

ahy WAHNT tuh CHEHK BOHTH THIHNGZ AHF mahy LIHST

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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