How to pronounce sweat in American English

IPA /swɛt/ Syllables 1 · sweht Stress 1st syllable
SWEHT
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Americans pronounce sweat as SWEHT (/swɛt/). You'll hear it in sentences like "She broke a sweat after only ten minutes on the treadmill".

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "sweat".

1 syllable, 4 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.

Mouth position for /s/ as in SUN
w/w/

Round your lips into a tight circle. Lift the back of your tongue toward the soft palate and add voice.

Mouth position for /w/ as in WET
eh/ɛ/

Drop your jaw moderately. Touch the tongue tip behind the bottom front teeth and lift the mid-front part slightly toward the roof.

Mouth position for BED Vowel
t/t/

Touch the tip or front edge of your tongue to the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth. Keep your jaw relaxed. Stop the air, then release with a puff.

Mouth position for /t/ as in TEN
In real conversation

Hear "sweat" in the wild.

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

"She broke a sweat after only ten minutes on the treadmill."
shee BROHK uh SWEHT AF·ter OHN·lee TEHN MIH·nuhts ahn dhuh TREHD·mihl
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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

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

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