American English AA Vowel How to make the AA Vowel
In this American English pronunciation
video, we’re going to learn how to
pronounce the AA as in BAT vowel.
This is a sound that changes depending
on the following sound. So, it can either
be a pure vowel or a modified vowel.
We’ll go over both in this video.
To make the pure AA vowel, the jaw
drops quite a bit, AA.
The tip of the tongue stays forward; it’s
touching the back of the bottom front
teeth, AA. The back part of the tongue
stretches up.
The tongue is wide, AA. Because the
tongue is high in the back and low in
the front, you can see a lot of it. This is
different from the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’
vowel, for example, where the tongue
presses down in the back and you see
more dark space in the mouth. AA, AH.
You can also see the corners of the
mouth pull back and up a little bit. AA.
Let’s take a look at the pure AA vowel
up close and in slow motion.
The tongue tip is down and the back of
the tongue lifts. Here’s the word ‘sat’.
The tongue position is easy to see
because of the jaw drop needed for this
vowel.
When AA is in a stressed syllable, the
vowel will go up and come down in
pitch, AA. Sat, AA. In an unstressed
syllable, the vowel is flatter and lower
in pitch, quieter, aa. This vowel is
unstressed in the second syllable of
‘backtrack’. Let’s look up close and
in slow motion.
In the first, stressed syllable, the jaw
drops, and we see the corners of the
lips pull back and up for the stressed
AA. In the unstressed syllable, the jaw
drops less. Let’s compare them.
On top is the stressed AA. You can see
the jaw drops more. For the unstressed
AA, the corners of the lips are a little
more relaxed than in the stressed
version, where they pull slightly back
and up.
Generally, the unstressed version of a
vowel or diphthong is more relaxed and
doesn’t take the full mouth position, in
this case, a little less jaw drop, and
relaxed lips. This is because unstressed
syllables are shorter, so we don’t take
the time to make the full position.
At the beginning of this video, I said the
AA vowel is not always a pure AA. This
vowel changes when it’s followed by a
nasal consonant. When it’s followed by
the M or N sounds, the tongue relaxes
in the back, making an UH sound after
AA. AA-UH. It’s not a pure AA sound.
Unfortunately, this change is not
represented in the International
Phonetic Alphabet. It’s still written with
the same AA symbol. So, you just have
to know when it’s followed by [m] or
[n], it’s different.
We don’t say ‘man’, aa, ‘man’, with a
pure AA. We say ‘man’, aa-uh, aa-uh,
relaxing the tongue and corners of the
lips before the consonant. You can
think of this UH relaxation as the ‘uh’ as
in ‘butter’ sound or schwa sound. Let’s
look up close and in slow motion at the
word ‘exam’.
First we see the familiar shape of the
mouth, when the AA is in a stressed
syllable. Watch how the relaxation
happens: the corners of the lips relax
in. The tongue will relax down in the
back. And the lips close for the M
consonant.
This relaxation of the corner of the lips
and back of the tongue happens when
the AA vowel is followed by the N
consonant as well. For example, the
word ‘hand’. Haa-uhnd. Hand.
So, when you see this symbol followed
by this symbol or this symbol, it’s no
longer a pure AA. Think of relaxing out
of the vowel, AA-UH.
If the next sound is the NG consonant,
it’s a little different. Rather than ‘aa-
uh’, the vowel changes into AY. It’s
really like the AY as in SAY diphthong.
First, the middle part of the tongue lifts
towards the roof of the mouth, then the
front part of the tongue. Let’s watch
‘gang’ up close and in slow motion.
The position for the first sound looks a
lot like AA, but the part of the tongue
lifting up is more forward. Gaaaang.
Then the front part of the tongue
arches up towards the roof of the
mouth, while the tongue tip remains
down.
When you see this symbol followed by
this symbol, it’s no longer a pure AA.
It’s more like AY. Gang. Thanks.
Pure stressed AA: Sat, aa
Pure unstressed AA: backtrack, aa
AA, aa, AA, aa.
AA vowel modified by M: exam, aa-uh
AA vowel modified by N: man, aa-uh
AA vowel modified by NG: gang, ay
Example words. Repeat with me: