[ɔɪ] ‘oy’ as in ‘toy’
The ‘oy’ as in ‘toy’ diphthong. The first vowel of this diphthong is the ‘aw’ as in ‘law’ vowel. However, in the diphthong, the lips will round more than when the ‘aw’ as in ‘law’ is simply a vowel in American English. Law, oy. Did you see how the lips shifted into a tighter position? Law, oy. The tongue position, however, is the ‘aw’ as in ‘law’ tongue position. It is slightly raised and shifted a bit back, o, o, so the tip of the tongue is not touching anything. The second sound is the ‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. To make this sound, the tongue will come forward and the tip will touch lightly behind the bottom front teeth. The mid part of the tongue will raise towards the roof of the mouth, oy, oy. And you can see the corners of the lips will pull out of the circle, oy, oy, and back.
Here are the two sounds of this diphthong. You can see in the first sound that the lips are rounded, and in the second sound that the corners of the lips pull back slightly. Here the two sounds are in profile with parts of the mouth drawn in. In the first sound the tongue is pulled back, in the second sound, the front part of the tongue raises towards the roof of the mouth while the tip of the tongue touches the bottom front teeth. The ‘oy’ as in ‘toy’ diphthong. Sample words: avoid, point, enjoyable.Sample sentence. The boy is annoying, but a loyal employee.Now you’ll see this sentence up close and in slow motion, both straight on and from an angle, so you can really study how the mouth moves when making this sound.