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 sprints in American English
SPRIHNTS
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Americans pronounce sprints as SPRIHNTS (/sprɪnts/). In "sprints", the "t" is squeezed between other consonants and drops out — the surrounding consonants flow together without it — most natural in flowing, casual speech; in careful or formal speech, the T may be lightly present. This is called the Silent T in Clusters, and it's one of the defining features of casual American English. It comes out as SPRIHNTS. You'll hear it in sentences like "The stopwatch is used to time the sprints accurately".
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Sound by sound
Every sound in "sprints".
1 syllable, 7 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.
p/p/
Press your lips together to stop the air, then release. No vocal cord vibration.
r/r/
Curl or bunch your tongue without letting the tip touch the roof of your mouth. Brace the sides of your tongue against your upper back teeth, and round your lips slightly.
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.
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.
t/t/
DroppedThe T is skipped entirely. Your tongue doesn't make contact at the T position.
s/s/
Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.
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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
Pronouncing the T in a consonant cluster.
In "sprints", the "t" is squeezed between other consonants and drops out — the surrounding consonants flow together without it — most natural in flowing, casual speech; in careful or formal speech, the T may be lightly present. /t/ is dropped entirely — the surrounding consonants flow together without the T.
sprints→SPRIHNTS
Questions
Questions people ask about this.
Is the American pronunciation of "sprints" 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 "SPRIHNTS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.
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