American English pronunciation
American English (General American) is the pronunciation used across most of the United States. Its defining traits are that the letter r is always pronounced — in car and hard as much as in red — the t between vowels in water and better softens to a quick d-like flap, and for most speakers the vowels of cot and caught have merged into one. Type any word above to hear it in an American voice.
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Voices
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What makes American pronunciation distinct
The r is always pronounced (rhotic)
Americans pronounce r wherever it is written, including at the end of a syllable. This is the single clearest marker of the accent.
The flap t
A t between two vowels becomes a fast, voiced tap — close to a d. So water sounds like “wadder” and better like “bedder”.
The cot–caught merger
Many American speakers pronounce cot and caught with the same vowel, a merger that is rare in British English.
Distinct word choices
Some words are simply said differently: schedule begins with a hard “sk”, tomato rhymes with “say-toe”, and the metal is aluminum.
Compare with other accents
The quickest way to hear what changes is side by side. Hear the same word in American and another accent with Compare, or read how they differ:
Practise the differences
Show the 15 words
Show the 15 words
Show the 15 words
Show the 15 words
Show the 15 words
Show the 15 words
Related guides
General American in depth
American English covers a wide spectrum of regional varieties, but the reference standard — General American (GenAm) — is what international learners usually target. It is spoken across a broad band of the United States, roughly from the West Coast through the Midwest, and it is the accent of national newscasts and most film and television, which is why it is the variety most people worldwide hear first.
The vowel system carries several shifts you will not hear in southern British English. The GOAT vowel is often monophthongised, so sits closer to a pure /o/ than to the British diphthong. The BATH set keeps the near-open front /æ/ — , and — where RP uses a broad /ɑː/. And the LOT vowel merges with PALM in most American dialects, which is the mechanism behind the cot–caught merger described above.
Rhoticity does more than add an R at the end of a word: it colours the vowel before it. In , and the R-colouring dominates the syllable, produced either as a retroflex approximant or a bunched R depending on the speaker. Alongside it, casual American speech glottalises T before a syllabic nasal, so the T in becomes a glottal stop rather than the flap heard in .
American English also inserts a linking or intrusive R between a vowel-final and vowel-initial word — "law and order", "the idea of it" — even where no R is written. The rhythm is stress-timed, with unstressed syllables compressed hard, which is what gives the accent its elastic cadence.
Regional variation is large. The Southern drawl diphthongises vowels that GenAm keeps simple; older New York City speech is non-rhotic and uses a distinctive /ɔ/; the Inland North has its own nasal quality; and the California vowel shift is currently reshaping West Coast speech. GenAm is a useful target precisely because it is the least regionally marked of these.
For learners, that consistency is the advantage: rhoticity is predictable, and there are thousands of hours of authentic American listening material freely available.
Twenty words to practise
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Last reviewed 2026-08-18 · Learn Pronounce