How to pronounce saw in American English

IPA /sɑ/ Syllables 1 · sah Stress 1st syllable

SAH

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Americans pronounce saw as SAH (/sɑ/). You'll hear it in sentences like "I saw the law" or "I saw a large star" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "saw".

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

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

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.

In real conversation

Hear "saw" in the wild.

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

"He was called to testify about what he saw that night."

hee wuhz KAHLD tuh TEH·stuh·fahy uh·BOWT wuht hee SAH dhat NAHYT

"I felt a wave of nostalgia when I saw my old photos."

ahy FEHLT uh WAYV uhv nah·STAL·juh wehn ahy SAH mahy OHLD FOH·dohz

"I saw a large star."

ahy SAH uh LARJ STAR

"I saw the law."

ahy SAH dhuh LAH

"I was relieved when I saw my score on the difficult exam."

ahy wuhz ruh·LEEVD wehn ahy SAH mahy SKOR ahn dhuh DIH·fuh·kuhlt uhg·ZAM

"She saw her daughter draw a tall building."

shee SAH her DAH·der DRAH uh TAHL BIHL·duhng

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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