American English Pronunciation Blog » American English vowel sounds

American English Pronunciation: Words that Begin with Schwa

susan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:38:18 +0000

This week I received LOTS of questions about the schwa vowel sound. Let me explain a few things about this KEY American English vowel sound.

In spoken English the schwa (see the image above) is the relaxed vowel sound that is frequently used to articulate the vowel sounds in unstressed syllables. Click here to read about syllable stress.

The schwa sound is made with your tongue in a relaxed position in the center of your mouth. It sounds like “uh”.

Any vowel can sound like a schwa when it occurs in an unstressed syllable.

Here a a few words that begin with the schwa vowel sound. Since the first syllable in these words is unstressed, the vowel sound is a schwa.

allow
ahead
around

economy
evaluate
erase

obtain
object
offend

undo
unlock
understand

The schwa sound is the most common vowel sound in English. Pronouncing this vowel correctly will help you improve the way you communicate with American English listeners.

American English Pronunciation: The /iy/ and /I/ Sounds

susan — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:00:47 +0000

One of the American English vowel sounds that non-native speakers frequently mispronounce is the /iy/ sound as in the word sheep.

They frequently shorten this sound so that it sounds more like the /I/ sound as in the word ship.

This means that when non-native speakers (especially Spanish & Portuguese speakers) say the word cheap, it sounds like chip. When they say the word seat, it sounds like sit. When they say the word seek, it sounds like sick. When they say the word beach, it sounds like…….well, you know!

Here is an exercise you can use to practice listening to and pronouncing these confusing sounds.

The /iy/ and /I/ sounds.

Good luck!

Pronunciation of the Vowel Combination ou

susan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:00:45 +0000

Continuing on my theme of American English vowels I’m going to write briefly on the pronunciation of the vowel combination ou.

This vowel combination can be pronounced 3 ways in American English. Here are some examples.

ou can be pronounced like /oʊ/

shoulder
soul
though
doughnut
although

ou can be pronounced like schwa /ə/

cousin
enough
country
tough
couple

ou can be pronounced like /aʊ/

loud
sound
south
found
house

If you want to learn more about how to articulate American English vowel sounds you might want to check out Mastering the American Accent with Audio CDs

This excellent book uses illustrated text with an audio CD to show you where to put your mouth, tongue and lips to form each sound.

EyeSpeak English Pronunciation Software

susan — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:00:39 +0000

Lots of people write to ask me about English pronunciation software. One that has recently come to my attention is called EyeSpeak English.

This program teaches English pronunciation through carefully designed content. Words build to sentences using common everyday themes that contain the language you need to know to speak English effectively with friends and in the workplace.

Topics include:

The software package includes over 100 hours of instruction and the price is only $49.95. This is a real value! EyeSpeak offers a 15 day guarantee so if you decide you don’t like the program within the first 15 days you can get your money back.
Check out EyeSpeak English nowand see how you can improve your pronunciation.

American English Pronunciation Problems for Speakers of Haitian Creole

susan — Tue, 25 May 2010 10:40:15 +0000

Haitian Creole speakers and French speakers have some of the same problems with spoken English.

One of these is the tendency to delete the /h/ sound at the beginning of words. Word initial /h/ is almost always pronounced in American English. That means that the /h/ must be articulated clearly in words such as: hat, here, hot, host, half, hair, hungry & husband. Exceptions to this rule include the words honest, honor and herb.

Speakers of Haitian Creole also have a tendency to pronounce words with the lax vowel sound /I/ using the tense vowel sound /iy/. That means that the word sit sounds like seat, the word live sounds like leave and the word chip sounds like cheap.

Linking within Words for Smoother Speech

susan — Fri, 14 May 2010 11:00:15 +0000

If you are an advanced student of American English pronunciation you have probably learned about linking (or liaisons). Linking refers to the connections between words. Ann Cook, author of American Accent Training, says that these connections “allow us to speak in sound groups” instead of word by word.

Spoken English has linking between words and also within words.

Word internal linking occurs when there are 2 vowel sounds inside a word. When this happens native English speakers will insert a /y/ or /w/ glide to connect the sounds.

The /y/ insertion is very common. This is sometimes referred to as the invisible /y/. Here are a few examples:

reunion sounds like reyunion
client sounds like cliyent
diet sounds like diyet

You will also hear a /w/ insertion is some words:
cooperate sounds like cowoperate
graduate sounds like graduwate
coersion sounds like cowersion

Click on the LINKING category to your right to learn more about the importance of linking in American English!

American English Pronunciation: R Colored Vowels

susan — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:00:41 +0000

The American English r is a very difficult sound for many non-native speakers to articulate correctly!

The American English r sounds like /ɚ/. The sound is made by bunching the middle of the tongue high in the back of the mouth and rounding the lips. The tip of the tongue curls up a bit, but it never touches the roof of the mouth.

When a vowel is followed by an r, the vowel sound changes. These are called r-controlled vowels, or r-colored vowels. Here are some of the phonemes you will hear.

The letters ar can sound like /ɑɚ/ as in: car, guitar & star.

The letters ear can sound like /iɚ/ as in: near, fear & beard.

The letters or usually sound like /ɔɚ/ as in: or, more & course.

The letters ir, er and ur, sound like /ɚ/ as in: bird, were, & fur.

Since the sounds of r-colored vowels are so complicated, many pronunciation books and courses simplify these. One great resource is the American English Pronunciation exercises from the Kelly brothers at Many Things.

The best book that I know of for learning the r-colored vowel sounds is Ann Cook’s American Accent Training. You can see the book by clicking on the link below.

American Accent Training (Book and Audio CD, 2nd Edition)

When O is Pronounced With the /ɑ/ Sound

susan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:00:25 +0000

There are many English words spelled with the letter o in which the o is pronounced like /ɑ/ as in the word father.

To make the /ɑ/ sound relax your lips and your tongue. Your tongue should be low in your mouth when you articulate this sound. Here is a list of words in which the letter o has an /ɑ/ sound.

1. hot

2. lot

3. stop

4. job

5. office

6. modern

7. confident

8. clock

9. dollar

10. doctor

To see the detailed articulation of this sound go to the University of Iowa Phonetics site and choose Vowels, Monothongs, Back.

American English Pronunciation of “ough”

susan — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:00:59 +0000

During my accent reduction tutoring sessions I frequently see students hesitate when they come across words that are spelled with ough. And no wonder! This letter combination has many different sounds in spoken American English. Here are * examples of the most frequent sounds of ough.

/u:/ as in through (sounds like blue)

/ɔːt/ as in thought (sounds like father)

/oʊ/ as in though (sounds like no)

/ɒf/ as in cough (sounds like off)

/əf/ as in rough (sounds like stuff)

/aʊ/ as in bough (sounds like now)

How do we Americans learn these pronunciations? Well,… as native speakers we learned to speak English before we learned to read it. That means that we applied our knowledge of spoken English to the written form.

People learning to speak English from written text don’t have this advantage and find the variety of pronunciations for the same letter combination very confusing.

*examples adapted from wikipedia.org

American English Pronunciation-The Letter O

susan — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:22:52 +0000

The vowel O has many sounds in American English. It can be confusing to know the correct pronunciation of this vowel.

I can think of five different pronunciations for the vowel O, but there could be even more. Here are my five examples:

1. In these words the O is pronounced as a schwa sound /ə/: love, come, above.

2. In these words the O is pronounced with the /a/ sound: stop, got, not.

3. In these words the O is pronounced with the /oʊ/ sound: bowl, loan, soap.

4. In these words the O is pronounced with the /u/ sound: fool, tool, school.

5. In these words the O is pronounced with the /ʊ/ sound: good, cook, shook.

There is an excellent audio course called Best Accent Training that provides detailed explanations and practice activities for of all the American English vowel sounds.