Saturday February 7th, 2009

The Vowel / ɔ /: This podcast teaches you how to pronounce / ɔ / correctly with a standard American accent and offers practice expressions, idioms and words that contain the vowel.

In this week’s podcast, we’re going to learn an important vowel in English: the vowel /ɔ/.

The focus of today’s lesson is:

• learning how to pronounce /ɔ/ like a native speaker.
• practicing /ɔ/ in words, expressions and idioms.

How to articulate / ɔ / correctly:

tongue: flat, moves back, back portion rises a little (tip is flat)

lips: somewhat rounded but not forward

jaw: drops, lowers somewhat

This sound requires some movement. It’s important to bring your tongue back, lower your jaw a little and round your lips somewhat.

I recommend that you use a mirror to check your form, the position of your lips and jaw.

Another way to find this sound is to think of the sound that Americans make when they see something cute.

If you’ve ever heard an American see something cute, you may have heard them make this sound.

“/ɔ/ , what a cute baby!”

“/ɔ/, look at that kitten! ”

/ɔ/ can be difficult to recognize by its spelling. This is becasue it has a few different spellings.

In future podcasts, we’ll learn the spelling patterns of /ɔ/. This week we’re just going to focus on practicing pronouncing it with the correct tongue, lip and jaw position.

Exercise: Listen and repeat / ɔ /.

Exercise: Listen and repeat the following words containing / ɔ / :

dog … cost … strong … saw …. talk … want … call …. ball … pause … coffee … brought … awesome

Exercise: Listen and repeat the following expressions and idioms
which contain /ɔ/:

Do you have a dog?
He’s really on the ball. (very competent and aware)
Wake up and smell the coffee. (be more aware of the reality that surrounds you)
That concert was awesome. (amazing, incredible)
You made the right call. (made the right decision or took the right action)

Just Ten Minutes a Day Can Make a Difference! :
Hearing and prounouncing /ɔ/ often takes time, practice and patience but with practice,it will become easier and feel more natural!
The more you practice and repeat the exercises, the more you’ll develop muscle memory- -the ability to do something without thinking- automatically.

Think of dancers, athletes and musicians- how do they get so good at what they do?

Practice, repetition- training

They practice their routines until it becomes automatic habit, muscle memory.

The same is true for accent reduction and English pronunciation !

One of the keys to changing the way you speak is regular training-

Looking for more practice? Try  Best Accent Training mp3s!

Any questions, comments or suggestions ? Contact us at:  contact@englishpronunciationpod.com

Thank you and see you next