How to pronounce skips in American English

IPA /skɪps/ Syllables 1 · skihps Stress 1st syllable

SKIHPS

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Americans pronounce skips as SKIHPS (/skɪps/). You'll hear it in sentences like "She usually skips breakfast when she is running late for work".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "skips".

1 syllable, 5 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.

k/k/

Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.

ih/ɪ/

Drop your jaw slightly with relaxed lips. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and arch the top-front toward the roof.

p/p/

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

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 "skips" in the wild.

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

"She usually skips breakfast when she is running late for work."

shee YOO·zhoo·uh·lee SKIHPS BREHK·fuhst wehn shee ihz RUH·nuhng LAYT fer WURK

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Questions

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