How to Pronounce AR ORN etc American English

I recently got an email asking me to

outline several sounds the first one is

the our our that would be the aw as in

father moving into the consonant sound

well as you can see I’m sure there is a

shift in the jaw ah the jaw is dropped

and relaxed her to make this R sound the

tongue which went from lying on the

bottom of the mouth has to come up so

the size of the tongue can touch the

inside top of the teeth ah ah and in

order for it to raise the tongue the jaw

has to go with the tongue ah ah the

sound is very relaxed and it feels

further back here ah ah when the tongue

comes up and presses against inside of

the teeth that brings the jaw up which

brings the sound more forward our are

some words hard hard heart heart car car

Marsh Marsh our car Marsh hard heart the

second sound that was requested is the

ORN sound born now written in IPA the

vowel sound here is written as the aw as

in law I really feel though that it’s

it’s separate sound when it’s spelled

with an O it’s closer to the boy as in

boy all all I feel but how does it

transition into that our sound Owen

thorne

all you can see the lips start in a

little bit in the corners but the

or they go back to being out so that is

the first change or also just like as in

the are the jaw is more dropped in the

vowel sound and it needs to come up more

to follow the tongue as it rises to

touch on the insides of the top teeth or

or now to make the N for the sound the

tongue the tip of the tongue which was

touching nothing in the are sound and

the are sound is the sides of the tongue

that touch needs to come up and touch

the top of the mouth so it goes from

being here where the sides are touching

for the are to raising and touching the

roof of the mouth urn and you can see

that it the tube of the tongue has to

move forward to do that because it is

here just behind the teeth where the

tongue touches to make the N or and then

the sides of the lips relax some words

Warren Warren morning morning born born

the third sound requested what is the

difference between few and fuel now this

is interesting because fuel ends in an L

and it is related to the blog entry I

just did on the L sound the light and

the dark in that blog I said that when

it is at the end of a word the L takes

on a dark quality and which is preceded

by a vowel all all before the tongue

moves up into position and that’s

exactly what happens here whew whew whew

oh oh

is the dark L sound so few is part of

the word fuel how our fuel has those two

extra sounds on the end the Oh full o

the dark L the two sounds that make up

the dark L few fuel few fuel and the

last sound requested is the T n sound as

in Mountain cotton kitten now in all of

these examples the T’s in the middle of

the word which often means it’s not

pronounced with that escape of air in

which the tea is really crisp and heard

it often takes on a sound similar to the

D I find it more as a stop than a sound

itself Mount mm Mountain now the thing

that’s interesting about this is when

the T is not pronounced sharply in the

middle of a word the tongue position it

takes is that of a D which is it’s

related consonant mount hmm now if I was

to say the word Dada Dada which begins

with the D the tongue begins in a

position at the top of the mouth this

part is all touching the roof of the

mouth dad it’s similar to the N in which

this part touches the front of the mouth

on the roof hmm but for the duh it’s

more of the tongue and it’s more of the

whole roof of the mouth Dada Dada so

when we make this T sound in the middle

of a word we bring our tongue up into

that position mount it’s touching the

roof of the mouth now I said it’s almost

more of a stop than of a sound itself

because we don’t actually say a D

sometimes we bring the tongue up which

stops the sound and to the native year

it makes enough of the sound that we

know what it is

now interestingly it’s very related to

the mmm sound so the tongue is pretty

much in the position to make the end

mount mmm the tongue just needs to slide

a little bit forward on the roof of the

mouth to bring it up to make that sound

mountain mountain mountain cut and

cotton cotton kit mmm

kitten kitten I have a mountain of work

to do my cotton shirt shrunk

I wanted a puppy but I got a kitten