s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
How to pronounce salts in American English
SAHLTS
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Americans pronounce salts as SAHLTS (/sɑlts/). In "salts", the "t" is squeezed between other consonants and drops out — the surrounding consonants flow together without it — most natural in flowing, casual speech; in careful or formal speech, the T may be lightly present. This is called the Silent T in Clusters, the kind of sound shift that makes everyday speech feel effortless. It comes out as SAHLTS. You'll hear it in sentences like "Acids and bases react to form salts and water".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "salts".
1 syllable, 5 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.
l/l/
DarkKeep the tongue tip down and pull the back of the tongue up toward the throat. The 'dark' sound comes from the back.
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.
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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
Pronouncing the T in a consonant cluster.
In "salts", the "t" is squeezed between other consonants and drops out — the surrounding consonants flow together without it — most natural in flowing, casual speech; in careful or formal speech, the T may be lightly present. /t/ is dropped entirely — the surrounding consonants flow together without the T.
salts→SAHLTS
02
Treating every L the same.
The L in "salts" is a dark L — the back of the tongue rises toward the soft palate, adding a small "uh" quality before the L. Dark L adds a small schwa-like "uh" before the L. The back of the tongue lifts toward the soft palate.
salts→SAHLTS
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "salts" 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 "SAHLTS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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