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