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.
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