How to pronounce shoe in American English

IPA /ʃu/ Syllables 1 · shoo

shoo

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Americans pronounce shoe as shoo (/ʃu/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Choose a new shoe" or "She showed the shiny shoe to the shop" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "shoe".

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

sh/ʃ/

Flare your lips and lift the mid-front tongue close to the roof of your mouth. Blow air through without voicing.

oo/u/

Round your lips into a tight circle. Let your tongue rest in the middle of your mouth, slightly raised.

In real conversation

Hear "shoe" in the wild.

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

"Choose a new shoe."

CHOOZ uh noo shoo

"She showed the shiny shoe to the shop."

shee SHOHD dhuh SHAHY·nee shoo tuh dhuh SHAHP

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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