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 smoke in American English
SMOHK
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Americans pronounce smoke as SMOHK (/smoʊk/). You'll hear it in sentences like "I need to replace the batteries in the smoke detector".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "smoke".
1 syllable, 4 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
m/m/
Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.
oh/oʊ/
Start with your mouth slightly open, then close your jaw slightly as your lips round. Shift your tongue back slightly, then stretch the back up.
k/k/
Raise the back of your tongue to touch the soft palate (velum). Stop the air, then release.
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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
Releasing the final consonant with a puff of air.
In "smoke", the "k" is not released — the articulators get into position but hold without the burst of air. Air stops but there's no release burst — the articulators hold position.
smoke→SMOHK
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "smoke" 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 "SMOHK" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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