How to pronounce pace in American English

IPA /peɪs/ Syllables 1 · pays Stress 1st syllable

PAYS

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Americans pronounce pace as PAYS (/peɪs/). You'll hear it in sentences like "He struggled to keep up with the fast pace of the lesson" or "Wage growth has not kept pace with the rising cost of living" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "pace".

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

p/p/

Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.

ay/eɪ/

Start with your jaw slightly open and the front of your tongue forward and slightly up. Glide upward, your jaw closes a little more and your tongue arches higher toward the roof of the mouth.

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 "pace" in the wild.

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

"He struggled to keep up with the fast pace of the lesson."

hee STRUH·guhld tuh KEEP UHP wihth dhuh FAST PAYS uhv dhuh LEH·suhn

"Wage growth has not kept pace with the rising cost of living."

WAYJ GROHTH huhz NAHT KEHPT PAYS wihth dhuh RAHY·zuhng kahst uhv LIH·vuhng

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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