English Pronunciation Linking Vowel to Vowel American Accent
Today I’m going to do another video on linking.
And today specifically, we’ll talk about linking
two words when one ends in a vowel sound and
the next one begins in a vowel sound – vowel
or diphthong sound. In this case, there should
be consonant sound when you are linking; there
should be no break between the words. Let’s
take for example the sentence, “Did you exercise?”
Ooo–eh, oo-eh. You–eh, you exercise. Some
of my students put a tiny break between each
word. And if you say oo eh with a tiny break,
no matter now small that break is, it’s still
not linked. Ooeh, ooeh, constant sound. Now,
I’ll note that there are two consonant sounds,
the W and the Y, that are glide consonants.
And you may find that you feel like you’re
making one of these sometimes when you link.
That’s ok. You-eh. The ‘oo’ as in ‘boo’ is
very related to the W consonant sound. So
if you feel like you’re making that W consonant
sound, don’t worry about it. Think about the
constant sound, uh, of your vocal cords underneath
the vowel sounds that you’re making. Oo-eh,
oo-eh. For some of you this will be no problem
because your native language also links. For
some of you however, though it’s a simple
concept, it will take a while to get comfortable
with that, to break the habit of putting tiny
breaks between words. So, let’s look at some
further examples. In this sentence, the word
yellow ends with the ‘oh’ as in ‘no’ diphthong,
and the word apple with the AA vowel. Oh,
aa. Oh-aa, oh-aa, no break in sound. Oh-aa.
And now quicker: oh-aa, oh-aa. I’d like the
yellow apple. The ‘ai’ as in ‘buy’ diphthong
linking with the AA. Aiaa, aiaa, aiaa. I actually
did. This next sentence in the title of a
standard that I happened to have in my head
while I was brainstorming this blog. We have
the ‘ee’ as in ‘she’ vowel linking to the
‘ih’ as in ‘sit’ vowel. Ee-ih, ee-ih, ee-ih.
Don’t fence me in. Here we have the ‘ee’ as
in ‘she’ linking to the schwa sound. Ee-uh,
ee-uh. She wants to be alone. And here the
‘ow’ as in ‘now’ diphthong linking to the
schwa. Ow-uh, ow-uh, ow-uh. How about tomorrow?
The EE vowel linking to the AA vowel. Ee,
aa, ee-aa, ee-aa, ee-aa. I like Woody Allen
movies. The ‘ee’ as in ‘she’ vowel linking
to the ‘ah’ as in ‘father’ vowel. Ee, ah,
ee-ah, ee-ah, ee-ah. I’d be honored. This
last sentence has two examples. The ‘ai’ as
in ‘buy’ diphthong linking to the ‘aw’ as
in ‘law’ vowel. Ai-aw, ai-aw, ai-aw. I almost.
The ‘ee’ as in ‘she’ vowel linking to the
‘ai’ as in ‘buy’ diphthong. Ee, ai, ee-ai,
ee-ai, ee-ai. The ice. I almost fell on the ice.
That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.