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AH vs. UH Vowels

In this American English pronunciation video we’re going to talk a little more about the vowels EE and IH.First, let’s take a look at some photos comparing the mouth positions.

Here we have the AH and UH vowels in profile.

You can see for the AH vowel that the jaw might drop a little bit more.

Also, the tongue position has a little bit of tension in it.

That’s because the tongue is flattened a little bit.In the UH vowel, the tongue is completely relaxed.

Now you’ll see the mouth from the front, alternating between the AH and the UH sounds.

Watch the subtle change in jaw drop.And see if you can notice the subtle change in tongue position as well.

AH, UH [3x].

So, for the AH sound, the jaw will drop a little bit more, and the tongue will push down a little bit in the back.But these differences are subtle.

The placement of the voice also comes into play.

Check out the video I made introducing the concept of placement.For the AH vowel, AH, the sound is more here, AH.For the UH vowel, UH, it’s more here.

The differences are subtle.

It’s tough. Here are some minimal pairs.Fond, fund. Shot, shut. Lock, luck. Robber, rubber. Stock, stuck. Cop, cup.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Don’t stop there. Have fun with my real-life English videos.

Or get more comfortable with the IPA in this play list.

Learn about the online courses I offer, or check out my latest video.

[α] ‘ah’ as in ‘father’

The ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ vowel sound. This vowel sound has more jaw drop, ah, than any other vowel in American English. So make sure you’re really getting a nice drop there. Ah, father. The tongue presses down, ah, ah, ah, which you’ll see in the photo. Ah. The tip of the tongue is forward, ah, lightly touching just behind the bottom teeth. Ah, father. The rest of the mouth has a neutral position. Here is the ‘ah’ as in ‘father sound on the right compared with the mouth at rest on the left. Notice how much the jaw has dropped in the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ sound.

Here, inside parts of the mouth are drawn in. Notice that, as in all vowels, the soft palate is raised. But more importantly, notice that the tongue has pressed down and is flatter. I feel this especially towards the back. Sample words: mom, collar, bother, bottle. Sample sentence: You can see my apartment from the Top of the Rock when there’s no fog. 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.

You. Now, the word ‘can’ here is reduced, so it’s kknn. The teeth come together for ‘see’. My, the next word, apartment, has an ah in the second syllable. Now you’re saying here perhaps, the tongue is not flat and the lips are relaxed. That is because the ah sound here is followed by an R consonant sound, and the R consonant sound takes over this ah vowel. So the jaw drops for the vowel, but even as you are beginning this vowel sound, the lips and the tongue start moving into position for the R consonant sound. Apar–, arr. But still make sure you get in a good ah sound before the rr. Ah, rr. The -ment of apartment. From the, two very quick words. Teeth come together for the tt and the jaw drops for the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ in ‘top’. Of the Rock. Again, the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ sound. And you can see the lips are relaxed, the tongue is down. When there’s, tongue comes up for the N and down. No, and the lip comes up, ff, for the F sound. Fog. Another ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ sound. And you can see the lips are relaxed, the jaw is dropped, and the tongue is flat.

You, lips forming this tight circle for the second part of the ‘ew’ as in ‘few’ diphthong. Can — now here it pronounced kknn, it is reduced. Tongue up to make the N, teeth together to make the S. See, lips together to make the M, my. And the ‘ai’ as in ‘buy’ diphthong. Apartment, ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ followed by the R consonant. So just as before, you can see that the tongue is back somewhat, preparing for the R consonant sound. And the lips have begun to round as well in preparation for that. You can see how far back the tongue is. Apartment. Lips together to make the M. From, lip up to make the F. The top, teeth together to make the T, and here is the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’, very relaxed drop. Now here you can see that the tongue is relaxed, and laying on the bottom of the mouth. Top, lips together to make the P. Of the Rock. Lips make the R and open again into the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ sound. And you can see the tongue moving up in the back to make the kk sound. When there’s no fog. Bottom lip up to make the F, and again the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ vowel sound. And again, you can see the tongue moving up in the back to make the gg sound. That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Battle vs. Bottle

[α], which is the vowel sound in bottle, and the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ [æ] sound, which is the vowel in battle. The first difference, you may notice, is in the corner of the mouth. Aa, aa, you can see the corners are pulled back and up a little bit. Aa, ah. In ‘ah’ as in ‘father’, they are not. They stay relaxed. Also, ah, aa, do you see the difference in the tongue? Ah, aa. It’s more present on the ‘aa’. On the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ it is very relaxed, ah, resting on the bottom of the mouth. With the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ sound, it comes up and then presses forward, aa aa, so you can see more of it. Ah, aa. So as it comes up in the back and presses forward, it widens a little bit and becomes more noticeable in the mouth. Ah, aa. Let’s look at some pictures.

Here we see the two sounds side by side. The word bottle, with the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ vowel sound, is on the left. The word battle, with the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat vowel sound is on the right. You can see in the word battle that the corners of the mouth are coming up and back a little bit. Also, you can see in the word bottle that the tongue is more relaxed. You can see some of the teeth. In battle, you can see more of the tongue as it spreads over the sides of those bottom teeth as it widens. Here are the two sounds in profile. You can see that there is a dark line running from the nose all the way down to the chin. This is from the tension in the corners of the lips coming up and back. This movement of the corners of the mouth also causes more tension in the bottom lip in the word battle. You can see in the word bottle how it is more relaxed, more hanging, than in the word battle.

Let’s look at some word pairs. As requested: bottle, battle. Cop, cap. Cot, cat. Chop, chapter. Rot, rat. Slop, slap.

Listen + Repeat Exercises: ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’

This video will give you the opportunity to practice the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ vowel sound. If you have not already watched the video on how to make that sound, you should watch that first. You will hear a word with the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ vowel sound and then be given time to repeat that word while looking at a picture for the correct mouth position for the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ sound. I encourage you to do this with a mirror so that you can watch your own mouth and make sure that you are taking the correct mouth position.

Scrap, tap, adapt, collapse, chapter, hat, sacrifice, black, plastic, act, attack, rack, slap, plaster, slab, tabl, stagger, flag, pastor, relax, apple, shallow, brag, crack, California, kick back, Macintosh.

Listening Comprehension: ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’

Today we’re going to work on listening comprehension for the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ vowel sound [æ]. You will hear one word spoken out of a word pair. And you need to decide if you are or are not hearing the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ sound. In the first set, the aa sound will be contrasted with the ‘eh’ as in ‘bed’ sound [ε]. You’ll hear each word twice; guess what you are hearing: bat, bed, ban, man, head, sand, gas, pen, said.

The next set of word pairs have the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ and the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ vowel sounds [α]: pond, hat, banned, rock, gnat, pat, cop.

The Letter A

In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to take a look at how the letter A is pronounced.

This video highlights some of the work I’ve done on my Sound Chart on my website. I often get emails from people asking questions like, why is the CH in Chicago pronounced differently than the CH in choice. And my answer is always, unfortunately, the letters in English do not correspond one-on-one with the sounds of English. To know exactly how a word is pronounced, you have to look up the International Phonetic Alphabet transcription of the word. Today we’re going to look at the letter A and all the different sounds it can represent.

In the word ‘exact’, it’s the AA sound, exact. In the word ‘father’, it’s the AH sound. Father. In the word ‘about’, it’s the schwa, the UH sound. About. In the word fall, it’s the AW sound. Fall. In the word ‘able’, it’s the AY diphthong. Able. In the word ‘share’, it’s the EH sound. Share. In the word ‘private’, it’s the IH vowel. Private.

So, when you see the letter A, you can’t necessarily make assumptions about how that letter is pronounced. It’s always best to look it up in a dictionary. Or, better yet, listen with your ears open as you hear native speakers. Make note of how they pronounce particular words.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Don’t stop there. Have fun with my real-life English videos. Or get more comfortable with the IPA in this play list. Learn about the online courses I offer, or check out my latest video.

How to Pronounce the Letter I

EH vs. AA Vowels

In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to compare the vowels EH and AA. First, let’s start by comparing profile pictures of the two sounds.

Here you’ll see the EH as in BED vowel on the left, and the AA as in BAT vowel on the right.

For the AA vowel, you can see that it’s the back part of the tongue that raises up towards the roof of the mouth.

For the EH vowel, it’s the mid/front part of the tongue that is stretching up.

Also, for the AA, you can see that the jaw drops just a little bit more.

So, for the AA vowel, the tongue is raising here. AA.

And for the EH vowel, the tongue is raising more here. EH. So, here for the AA and here for the EH.

AA, EH. When comparing the two sounds in isolation, you’ll also notice that the jaw does not drop as much for the EH sound, as the front part of the tongue is raising towards the roof of the mouth. AA, EH.

There’s a difference in the lip position as well.

For the AA vowel, you may find that you get a more accurate sound if you lift a little bit here with the top lip. AA, AA.

Whereas, for the EH sound, the lips remain very relaxed and neutral, EH, EH. Now we’ll see the two alternating up close. AA, EH, AA, EH.

To close, a few minimal pairs. Bat, bet. Capped, kept. Jam, gem. Tack, tech. Rack, wreck.

I hope this video has made the difference between these two sounds a little more clear. That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

Lesson: the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ Sound

This video contains excerpts from a pronunciation lesson I had with my friend from Turkey In this particular video, we are working on the sound ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’. When he was first learning this sound, aa it felt very awkward and overdone for him to drop his jaw so much. He was much more comfortable keeping it about here much more neutral. Aa. But this sound has a really large opening here in the jaw After he got more comfortable opening his mouth he was also spreading his mouth, aa, aa and making it this big wide rectangle which is also not correct. It is not so much stretched this way as dropped here with the tongue going up and then down Aa, aa.

In this section, we are talking of the pronunciation of the word ‘capped’. Capped: in this context meaning the apex of something. For example, ‘I capped my career with a concert in Carnegie Hall. ‘ Capped. When he was not dropping his jaw, aa ‘ and was keeping it capped, capped, it sounded like ‘kept’, ‘which is past tense ‘keep’, as in, ‘I kept my cell phone in my purse’ ‘Capped, kept. Aa, aa, capped, kept.

Capped the life of … Aa … capped. Yep, it’s aa…do you see? my jaw dropps and my tongue– aa. Aa, yeah, aa. Capped, capped. So, your mouth needs to open more: ca. Really? yeah. But when you open it I want you to say aa. Aa. That was better, do it again. Aa. That was good. Now that feels kind of stupid right? But that’s the sound in English. Capped, capped, capped. Aa, aa, aa. Ok. capped. Capped. That was good.

Here we are talking about the word ‘elaborate’, aa. Elaborate — elaa. Elaborate. Aa. Elaborate. Yeah, do just ‘aa’. Aa. That is very good. Aa, aa. And I can tell that your tongue is doing it right. I learned. Good! You learned it.

I Here when he first says the word ‘spectacular’, watch how little movement there is in the mouth. It is very much like this. And on the second one, see how much he drops his jaw. And that is correct. …if not spectacular– spec-tAAc-ular. Spectacular.