Mouth Position Study American English Pronunciation
In this video, we’re going to focus on the
correct mouth position for the various sounds
in American English.
Today we’re going to look at freeze frames
of the mouth in various different positions,
and we’ll guess what sound is being produced.
It’s important to know well the positions
of the different sounds. The correct position
is the key to the correct pronunciation. Let’s
get started.
What sound do you think is being made here?
The lips are closed, but clearly the mouth
is not at rest. This is the M sound, where
the lips are closed but the vocal cords make
noise. M isn’t the only sound that is made
with closed lips. B and P are also made by
releasing closed lips. This is the B sound,
bb. What sound do you think we have here?
Corners of the lips are pulled back, and the
top lip is a little raised, showing some of
the top teeth. You can see that the tongue
is coming down in the front, touching behind
the bottom front teeth. And it’s raised in
the back, because we can see quite a bit of
the tongue. This is the AA vowel, aa. Notice
how much the jaw is dropped for this sound.
And what sound is being made here? The bottom
lip has been pulled up and is touching the
bottom of the top front teeth. That means
it is either the F or the V sound. In this
case, it was the V. But both the F and the
V take this same position. What sound is this?
The lips are flared, and the teeth are together.
There are actually four sounds that have this
mouth position: SH, DJ, CH, and JJ. Here,
I was saying the word ‘generally’, so it was
the JJ sound. What sound is this? The tongue
is coming through the teeth. If you guessed
the TH, you’re correct. This can either be
the voiced or the unvoiced TH. The L can also
have this shape. Some people do bring the
tongue tip to the bottom of the front teeth,
rather than to the hard palate to make the
L sound. What sound is this? The lips are
making a tight circle. This is the W consonant
sound. What sound is this? The lips are parted,
but the teeth are together. In this particular
photo, it is the Z sound, zz, in the word
‘because’. It’s the same mouth position as
the S sound. The true T and D sounds are also
made in part by the teeth being together with
the lips parted. The sound is made complete
when the teeth part and the air comes out.
What sound is this? The lips have come in,
yet it looks a little less round than the
W. This is a beginning R, in the word ‘reduce’.
If you could see it from the side, you would
see that as the corners have come in, the
lips do come away from the face as they round.
In closing, we are going to watch speech with
the sound turned off. This is to help you
focus on the mouth. I want you to see how
much the mouth really is moving to make these
different sounds. When you practice English,
use a mirror sometimes, and watch your mouth.
Make sure that your lips rrrrrrrround enough
to make the R sound, and that your tongue
comes th-th-th-through the teeth for the TH.
Let’s watch.
Hey Rachel’s English users. Thank you so much
for watching my videos, for continuing to
tune in, for leaving comments and giving me
ideas for more videos. I hope that they’re
helping you in your study of English, and
that you think enough of them to pass on their
information to your fellow students, teachers,
and other people you know who are studying English.
And now we’ll see that same clip slowed down
a little bit.
Hey Rachel’s English users. Thank you so much
for watching my videos, for continuing to
tune in, for leaving comments and giving me
ideas for more videos. I hope that they’re
helping you in your study of English, and
that you think enough of them to pass on their
information to your fellow students, teachers,
and other people you know who are studying English.
I hope this video has helped make clear to
you the distinctly different positions of
the sounds of American English.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.