How to pronounce song in American English

IPA /sɑŋ/ Syllables 1 · sahng Stress 1st syllable

SAHNG

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Americans pronounce song as SAHNG (/sɑŋ/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Sing a song" or "The king was singing a long song" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "song".

1 syllable, 3 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.

ng/ŋ/

Lift the back of your tongue to the soft palate. Lower your soft palate to let air flow through your nose.

In real conversation

Hear "song" in the wild.

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

"He turned up the volume when his favorite song came on the radio."

hee TURND UHP dhuh VAHL·yoom wehn ihz FAY·ver·uht SAHNG KAYM ahn dhuh RAY·dee·oh

"She loves singing her favorite song."

shee LUHVZ SIHNG·uhng her FAY·ver·uht SAHNG

"Sing a song."

SIHNG uh SAHNG

"The audience applauded after the long song."

dhee AH·dee·uhns uh·PLAH·duhd AF·ter dhuh lahng SAHNG

"The school choir will require a new song."

dhuh SKOOL KWAHY·er wihl ruh·KWAHY·er uh NOO SAHNG

"The acoustic version of the song sounds very intimate and raw."

dhee uh·KOO·stuhk VUR·zhuhn uhv dhuh SAHNG SOWNDZ VEH·ree IHN·tuh·muht and RAH

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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