Producing /aʊ/

How to produce /aʊ/

Before anything else, get the articulation right. The right mouth position makes the sound effortless.

/aʊ/
MOUTH diphthong
Lips: neutral
Tongue: low-central
Voicing: voiced
💡 Start at /a/, round lips and glide to /ʊ/.

Key production cues:

Start low-central, glide up to rounded /ʊ/.

Practice the sound in isolation

Before trying words, practice the sound on its own. Record yourself. Does it match?

1. Say /aʊ/ in isolation — hold it for 2 seconds.
2. Say /aʊ/ quickly, 5 times in a row: /aʊ-aʊ-aʊ-aʊ-aʊ/.
3. Compare your recording to a native reference.

Try a few isolated words

These words all contain /aʊ/ in different positions — beginning, middle, and end:

• Beginning: out, our, now
• Middle: how, cow, house
• End / in clusters: cloud, sound, mouth

/aʊ/MOUTH diphthongArticulator diagram · regional variants · drill ↗