pronouncekit

SOUND LESSON

How to pronounce /aʊ/: the vowel in house

Open your mouth, then round your lips and glide toward /ʊ/ for /aʊ/ in house and now. Learn ou and ow spellings, with first-language guidance.

/aʊ/
American English
/aʊ/ · diphthong · open-central → high-back · increasingly rounded
British English
/aʊ/ · diphthong · open-central → high-back · increasingly rounded
Pronunciation model

Try it in a word

How about a loud sound outside?

Mouth & tongue

Enable JavaScript to view the 3D panda. Pronunciation steps remain available below.

Vocal folds: vibrating

TongueTeethUvula

Simplified human pronunciation. The small uvula hangs from the palate; it is not the vocal folds. The wave indicates voicing.

Voice settings

The mouth starts slightly open. Movement is slowed for observation; the synthetic sound plays once at its original speed. Pause holds the current mouth shape; reset returns to the relaxed position. The panda is a symbolic teaching aid for human pronunciation, not animal anatomy.

What your mouth is doing

The jaw opens for an open starting point, then closes as the tongue rises and the lips round. The whole movement stays in one syllable, with more length at the start than at the end.

Comparing with Mandarin and Spanish

Spellings ou and ow are common but not reliable: ow is /aʊ/ in now but /oʊ/ in show, and ou is /ʌ/ in young. Bow and row each have two pronunciations.

Mandarin ao and Spanish au, as in causa, are close starting points. The usual difficulty is spelling, because ou and ow have several English values.

Build the sound, step by step

  1. Drop your jaw for a wide start, as in the beginning of now.
  2. Close your jaw and round your lips as your tongue moves toward /ʊ/.
  3. Say house, out and down. Then compare now and know.

What to watch for

  • Stopping before the lips round can turn down toward Dan or don.
  • Reading all ow alike confuses now and know. Check the dictionary for each word.

Hear the difference in your own voice

Practice now and know, then loud and load. Start wide in now and loud, and start rounded or central in know and load, while both end near /ʊ/.

Compare these sounds

Keep practicing

References & editorial notes

PronounceKit wrote this lesson as practical guidance. The references below describe the sounds; the comparisons with other languages are editorial teaching suggestions. It describes common American and British patterns, not every accent, and it has not been independently reviewed by a pronunciation specialist. The mouth model is a simplified teaching aid, not a validated simulation.

Published 3 November 2026