How to pronounce sounds in American English

IPA /saʊndz/ Syllables 1 · sowndz Stress 1st syllable

SOWNDZ

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Americans pronounce sounds as SOWNDZ (/saʊndz/). You'll hear it in sentences like "The acoustic version of the song sounds very intimate and raw".

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Sounds

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Clarity

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Stress

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Intonation

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Fluency

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "sounds".

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.

ow/aʊ/

Start with a dropped jaw and flat tongue. Glide into a relaxed, slightly rounded lip position as the back of the tongue stretches up.

n/n/

Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth behind your teeth. Air flows through your nose.

d/d/

Touch the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Add vocal cord vibration as you release.

z/z/

Same position as S, but add vocal cord vibration. Feel the buzz.

In real conversation

Hear "sounds" in the wild.

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

"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 "sounds" 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 "SOWNDZ" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.