Pronunciation Paul Gruber #8|JohnnyVo

Hi, and welcome back. Again, my name is Paul Gruber, and this is the Pronunciation Workshop's eighth training session. Today, we will begin to work on vowel sounds. I know that vowel sounds are often difficult for non-native speakers. One reason is that there are five vowel letters in English, A, E, I, O, and U, but there are around 15 vowel sounds, and some vowels have as many as 10 different spellings. So that's why it is so difficult. When someone learns English as a second language, what they often do is substitute vowel sounds from their first language into their newly learned English. And when these vowel sounds are spoken incorrectly, it may often cause you to be misunderstood. That's why in these next few sessions, I'll be teaching you the correct way to pronounce American English vowels. Now, vowel sounds are made by slightly changing the size, shape, and the tension of the muscles in your mouth, your tongue, and your lips. A small change can produce an entirely different sound. Instead of giving you diagrams of tongue placement, how round your lips should be, or how far you should open your mouth, I believe the best way to learn American vowels is by ear training. Ear training is learning vowel sounds just by listening and then reproducing them on your own. To help teach you the American vowel sounds, I will separate them into two groups, front vowels and back vowels. When your tongue rises up in the front, it's a front vowel. When your tongue rises up in the back, it's a back vowel. Let's start by going over the basic front and back vowel sounds. My goal right now is to just have you hear the sounds. You do not need to memorize this. First, front vowels. Listen carefully. Don't repeat, just listen. These sounds move from what I call high to low. Here we go. E, IH, EY, EH, AH. Notice with each of these vowels, my jaw is opening a little bit more and more. Let's do it again. Listen carefully. E, IH, which is a difficult one for many people, IH, EY, EH, AH. Now, this time I'd like you to repeat. E, IH, EY, EH, AH. Now, I put them in word forms to make it a little bit easier. Repeat after me. E, as in heat. EH, as in hit. EH, as in hate. EH, as in het, which is a nonsense word. And AH, as in hat. Heat, hit, hate, het, hat. Okay, now let's do back vowels. Again, vowel sounds move from high to low. Here we go. OO, UH, OH, AH, AH. Again, and notice how my jaw is opening on each one. And also notice how my lips are coming forward all the way on the OO sound. You see that OO? OO, UH, OH, AH, AH. Okay, now repeat it with me. OO, UH, OH, AH, AH. Now, let's put these sounds into word forms. OO, as in boot. UH, as in book. OH, as in boat. AH, as in bought. And AH, as in bought, which is a nonsense word. BOOT, BOOK, BOAT, BOUGHT, BOUGHT. Again, BOOT, BOOK, BOAT, BOUGHT, BOUGHT. BOOT, BOOK, BOAT, BOUGHT, BOUGHT. Very good. Now let's go back a little bit to front vowels. I'd like to address the EE sound in the word heat. And the EH sound as in the word hit. Most of the foreign speakers that I work with make many errors with these two sounds. And many times they are switched. When the word should have an EE, it's pronounced as an EH. When it should have an EH, it's pronounced as an EE. Think of the sound EE as in heat, as being high up. And EH as in hit, as being a little bit lower. One hint I could give you is when you're practicing, raise your eyebrows with EE words like this, HEAT, and then lower your eyebrows and don't smile so much with EH words like HIT. HEAT, HIT, like that. I've put together some paired words with these two sounds. Listen, compare the vowel sounds, and then repeat them back. Here we go. HEAT, HIT. KEEN, KIN. DEAL, DILL. SEEK, SICK. SEEN, SIN. REAP, RIP. TEAL, TILL. BEAN, BIN. Let's talk about these last two words, BEAN and BIN. Most of the time in English, when a word is spelled with a double E, it's pronounced as EE, like in the word FEED, or SEEN, or TEEN, with a double E. However, in English, here is an exception. The word BEAN, spelled B-E-A-N, which you eat, is pronounced with a high E sound, BEAN. However, this word, B-E-E-N, spelled with a double E, is pronounced with a low E sound, BIN, like in the word HIT. Even though it's spelled with a double E, it's pronounced with the vowel sound E. So, for example, this sentence reads, I've BIN buying BEANS. We'll be going over more of this in a moment, but first, let's look at some words with the E sound. Remember, smile and think high. SEE, ME, EACH, EVEN, KEY, GREEN, TREE, VERY, HAPPY, SOFTLY, MERRY, BUSY, FINALLY, COUNTRY. Now these sentences. SPEEDING ON THE FREEWAY, HAPPILY EATING CHEESE, HE AND SHE, SKIING VERY RAPIDLY. Very good. Okay, now let's try this paragraph. SHE SEES A MONKEY EATING HONEY. WE SEE A PONY STEALING MONEY. WHO CAN HE SEE? IT MUST BE ME. Very good. Okay, now let's work on the IH vowel sound. It's the same sound as in the word HIT, HIT. Repeat after me. BIT, BILL, LIFT, FIZZ, KITCHEN, BUILD, BIGGER, CHIMP, FIFTH, LISTEN, BUSINESS, FIST, DISPLAY, FILMING, LIVE, FISH, DISCUSS, FIG, FIFTY, BIN. Okay, now let's go over these practice sentences which have both the E sound and the IH sound. Listen and repeat these sentences after me. I'll be putting my hand up high for every E sound and lowering it for every IH sound. E, IH, like that. And also all the words with E sounds are underlined. Here we go. THE BEANS HAVE BEEN COOKING SINCE SIX O'CLOCK. SIT IN THAT SEAT BY THE WINDOW. WE ATE OUR MEAL BY THE MILL. THE SEAL WILL LIVE IN THE OCEAN. TIM'S TEAM GRINNED AFTER SEEING THE GREEN FIELD. PIP AND PETE SHIPPED THE SHEEP CHEAPLY. THOSE BINS ARE FOR BILL'S BEANS. DOES JIM STILL STEAL JILL'S JEANS? THE GIRLS PUT CONCRETE ON JILL'S SNEAKERS. PICK CHERRIES AT THEIR PEAK OR YOU WILL EAT THE PITS. Very good. Now I know these vowels can be very tricky. It's probably a good idea to review this video a few times. Some of you may have noticed that you've been mispronouncing many words incorrectly using wrong vowel sounds. For example, earlier we spoke about the pronunciation of the words HEAT and HIT and how the sounds are often switched. So if you say, HE HEAT the BASEBALL and FELT the HIT, I want you to realize that that's not right. What's correct is, HE HIT the BASEBALL and FELT the HEAT. Okay? So keep on practicing. Believe me, you will eventually get very good at this. Thanks for watching. I'm Paul Gruber for the Pronunciation Workshop and I'll see you at our next session.