Depending on how much emphasis you put on the word, it can range from one to two syllables. If you use it in a sentence ("The owl ate the mouse") spoken at a conversational speed, the sounds that come from your mouth are likely to be indistinguishable from saying the name Al. If you say the word slowly, you'll have an [æ] (the vowel in cat) or an [a] (the first vowel in father), followed by [wl̩] (sounds like a sheep's hair).