Practice this American A Pronunciation Exercise | #140

The letter A makes many different sounds, and here we see a quick exercise to better understand the most commonly used American A pronunciation. Repeat after me as we compare A with E and O sounds to develop a deeper understanding of the American accent's sounds.

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COACH WITH ME 1 ON 1

Transcript

Welcome

Speaker 1 0:40

Welcome to the Accent Training podcast. A podcast to enhance the sound of your spoken English. My name is Pat, I'm a coach of the American accent. And today I have a quick exercise for all the English learners out there who are looking to work on the sound of their wide A, the wide A. This is the sound like

Speaker 2 1:08

A A,

Speaker 1 1:10

We hear it in back, back T. Let me explain to you how to make this ah sound clearly cuz it's a really important one. Feel the backs of your bottom teeth with the tip of your tongue. Open your mouth and drop your jaw down. Make the middle of your tongue curl upwards towards the roof of your mouth and the back part of your tongue rise up and touch your upper teeth.

Speaker 2 1:46

Ah, ah.

Speaker 1 1:48

It's like you drop your jaw down and then your tongue makes an arch from your front bottom teeth all the way up to your top back teeth with a middle pointing upwards.

Speaker 2 2:01

Ah, ah.

The most common mix-ups

Ah v Eh Words

Speaker 1 2:04

Now I've spoken about this, ah, sound in the past and I just wanna work it out right now. Quick accent training session, working out that, ah, sound. And so we are going to do a simple quick exercise. Reading minimal pairs. Minimal pairs refers to a pair of words with a small difference between the two. These are words that non-native English speakers will often mix up. Now when we're talking about the ah, sound, non-native speakers will most commonly mix this up with one of two sounds, Either A or a A. So let's start with these A and A sounds to get used to the differences here. Repeat these words back to me and exaggerate your ah position. Raising your tongue high in the back, low in the front, curled upwards in the middle. And your jaw dropping down low. Let me hear these words. Starting with back and back. Not dropping my jaw so low, not really curling my tongue upwards much in the middle, eh, lazier position back. Another two.

Speaker 2 3:40

Gas. Gas. Ah,

Speaker 1 3:47

Raising the tongue in the middle, dropping the jaw down.

Speaker 2 3:52

Gas guess.

Speaker 1 3:59

Next two words here. Sad,

Speaker 2 4:06

Sad. Ah,

Speaker 1 4:10

Curling the middle up,

Speaker 2 4:12

Eh,

Speaker 1 4:13

Relaxed.

Speaker 2 4:15

Sad,

Speaker 1 4:19

Sad,

Speaker 2 4:22

Mad,

Speaker 1 4:29

Mad.

Speaker 2 4:34

And

Speaker 1 4:35

Finally,

Speaker 2 4:38

Taxes.

Speaker 1 4:41

Texas.

Speaker 2 4:44

Taxes,

Speaker 1 4:48

Texas. Now that's the minimal difference between A

Speaker 2 4:53

And air A, uh, uh,

Speaker 1 4:58

And I hope my advice has provided you folks with at least a little bit of clarity to better feel what's going on here.

Speaker 3 5:06

Let's

Speaker 1 5:07

See, one more minimal difference here.

Speaker 2 5:11

Ah,

Speaker 1 5:13

And ah, do you hear that?

Speaker 2 5:19

Ah,

Speaker 1 5:22

The difference here is when I go,

Speaker 2 5:24

Ah, compared to ah,

Speaker 1 5:27

The middle of my tongue is no longer pointing upwards, but it's actually pointing more down.

Speaker 2 5:34

Ah. The

Speaker 1 5:36

Back of my tongue is still around the middle of my mouth and the tip of my tongue is still touching my bottom teeth and my jaw is still dropping down.

Speaker 2 5:47

Ah, ah.

Speaker 1 5:48

But the middle of my tongue points downwards instead of upwards in. This gives us a sound closer to the British A than the American sounding wide. A,

Speaker 2 6:03

Ah,

Speaker 1 6:04

Let's put five of these pairs to work. Repeat after me.

Speaker 2 6:10

Last,

Speaker 1 6:13

Last,

Speaker 2 6:17

Last

Speaker 1 6:18

Middle of the tongue pointing up

Speaker 2 6:23

Lost,

Speaker 1 6:24

Middle of the tongue pointing downwards.

Speaker 2 6:28

A black uh, block map. Map.

Speaker 1 6:47

Let's do that again.

Speaker 2 6:49

Map. Map.

Speaker 1 6:55

Now tell me the word Google maps. We use that to get around right? Google maps, not Google Maps. Open Google Maps. Very British sound, open Google Maps, American sounding. And if you really wanna test your a's out Apple maps.

Speaker 2 7:21

Oh,

Flak

Speaker 1 7:22

Open Apple Maps. Nobody uses apple maps. I have an Apple phone and I don't even use Apple maps. Use Google Maps or ways. Who uses Apple

Speaker 2 7:35

Maps?

Speaker 1 7:36

Substandard GPS tracking. That's what I say. I got one more pair for you.

Speaker 2 7:44

Fla fla.

Speaker 1 7:50

Repeat those back to me again.

Speaker 2 7:53

Fla fla.

Today's idiom

Speaker 1 7:59

Now what does FLA mean? Well, FLA is strong criticism, strong criticism. F L A K, fla. And I'll be honest with you, I thought it was F A C K until I just Googled it and it says the proper spelling is F L A K flack. So repeat those two bank to me once again.

Speaker 2 8:27

Fla

Speaker 1 8:30

Fla. Now we're gonna get to wrapping this one up for today and we are going to close this one off with an idiomatic expression. And this expression uses the new word that we just discussed.

Speaker 3 8:46

Fla

Speaker 1 8:47

Flag, F a k, fla. Repeat after me and listen closely for the A sales. Catch some

Speaker 2 8:58

Flag.

Keep practicing

Speaker 1 9:01

Catch some flag. When we say it quicker, catch some flag. You'll catch some flag for that. What does that mean? So as we just discussed, flag is criticism, strong criticism. And so if you catch some flack, then it means that you are receiving strong criticism. Attach some fla being criticized deeply for something. I'll give you a quick example. He'll catch some flack if he talks like that,

Speaker 3 9:39

Repeat

Speaker 1 9:40

That back to

Speaker 3 9:41

Me.

Wrapping it up

Speaker 1 9:42

He'll catch some fla if he talks like that. So this brings us to wrapping things up for today. I just wanted to take the opportunity to revisit one of the most commonly used sounds in the American accent. Are you able to adjust this to your speech? Yes, you most certainly are. Do you need this in your speech to communicate in English? No, most certainly not. As I said, the British accent doesn't use it and we understand most of what they say. I'll be honest, North Americans do struggle listening to the British accent sometimes, but that's just because we're not used to it over here, right? So dedicate some time to developing this sound. It's not going to fully develop by listening to just one or even all of my podcast episodes covering this sound. It's going to take dedication and it's going to take at least a few weeks. But if you want to change your awe or eh sounds to a sounds, all you gotta do is drop your jaw down, arch your tongue in the middle towards the roof of your mouth, and raise the back of your tongue up nice and high until it touches your top teeth in the back. The front is low, the back is high, and your jaw open. Put that sound to work regularly and you will get the hang of it in no time. Now, before I let you folks go for today, you know that I've gotta mention that if you liked what you learned today, make sure that you've hit subscribe to this podcast on whatever app you use to listen to it. And I'd like to tell you folks another thing. If you want to take your learning beyond this podcast, my Patreon is open, my friends, my Patreon page is open. I'm gonna make another episode describing more in depth the details of what you'll get at Patreon. But let me tell you, I have a lesson covering this wide a sound on the Patreon and this lesson is the one stop shop for that wide a sound. This lesson will teach you how to use it with a ton of practical exercises to make this a versatile habit for your improvised English speech. If you want to check out the Patreon, just open the description of this podcast episode, open the link below and and we can get to work. I'll have another episode out very soon detailing what you'll get on Patreon. Anyway, I've gotta get going. There's a pool party today. It's raining outside, but there's a pool party anyway, so I'm gonna go to the pool party in the rain, so I'm gonna go get to some fun. Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to helping you further develop your American accent in the days to come. Have a good one, folks.