Did you know the letter A has six different vowel
sounds in American English? You might have pronounced
them incorrectly before, but this episode will
help you master them fast. Welcome back to the
Learn English Podcast, the podcast teaching English
in context so you can learn naturally. On today's
episode, I want to focus on discussing a particular
vowel in the English language. Now in English,
we have multiple vowels and we also have multiple
sounds for each vowel. That makes it very confusing
and very difficult for people who are learning
English to try to figure out how to correctly
pronounce words that have these different vowels
in them. So on today's episode, I just want to
focus on the vowel A. So you can better work
on your English pronunciation. So if you're interested
in learning more about how to correctly pronounce
this vowel, then follow along because we're about
to begin. Before we get started, I want to remind
you to look at the description of this podcast
episode. There you will find a list of the words
and phrases that I used in the episode, so you
can take them, study them, and build your English
vocabulary. Now let's just talk a little bit
about vowels. In English, we have multiple vowels,
and like I said, they have multiple sounds. However,
you are going to notice a pattern when it comes
to vowels. When we are looking at the vowels
A, E, I, O, and U, there is a commonality. between
them. They all have something in common, and
that is that they all have something we call
the short vowel sound and the long vowel sound.
So those are the first two vowel sounds that
we're going to go over for the vowel A. When
we talk about a short vowel sound, that is usually
a shorter sound that we make when we're pronouncing
the vowel. It does not sound like the actual
letter. The short vowel sound for a is a, a.
That a sound is a sound that usually occurs when
you have single syllable words, when you have
words that are very short. For example, the words
cat, mat, bat all have that a. vowel sound. They
all are one syllable words. They have a consonant,
the letter A, and then another consonant. If
you don't know, a consonant is just a letter
that is not a vowel, so something that is not
an A, E, I, O, U. When you do see those one syllable
words, very short words with an A in the middle
of the word, most likely you're going to have
this vowel sound, so you're going to want to
pronounce the A as an A. It doesn't just occur
in single syllable words. It can also occur in
longer words or multiple syllable words. For
example, the words apple and happy also have
that a sound. If you listen closely while I pronounce
them, you will hear it. Apple. Happy. For both
of these words, the letter A is immediately followed
by the letter P, and that's one of the things
that can help you when you're trying to distinguish
which vowel sound the letter A makes. If the
letter A is followed by the letters P, T, N,
or D, it usually has this A vowel sound to it.
That is the short vowel sound. Now let's talk
about the long vowel sound. This is when the
vowel is actually pronounced like the letter.
So when I pronounce this vowel sound, I'm going
to say the letter A as the sound I make for the
vowel in the particular word that I am pronouncing.
When we are here in the United States as young
children learning to read at school, we actually
are taught about these short and long vowel sounds.
And one of the rules that we are given to help
us differentiate, which means tell the difference
between something. So the rule that we get to
differentiate between the short and the long
vowel sound is that if the word ends with the
letter. It usually changes the vowel sound from
a short vowel to a long vowel sound. Let's go
through some examples so you can see what I mean.
When we did the short vowel sound, we said that
bat, mat, cat were all short a vowel sounds with
that a sound. If we take those exact same words,
but we just put an E at the end, we change the
pronunciation because we create a long vowel
sound. Bat becomes bait. Mat becomes mate. Cat
becomes ate. Now that we've learned these rules,
let's see if you're able to do them. L -A -T
would be... Lat, L -A -T -E would be late. Do
you see the pattern? Are you able to pronounce
those correctly? Let's do some more practice.
We have the words cake, name, and face. All of
those, again, end with the letter E, so you have
this long A vowel sound. Now, an example of this
vowel sound with a word that does not end with
the letter E is play. Play ends with a Y. When
we talk about this vowel sound, you will see
that sometimes the Y acts like an E or sounds
like an E. In this case, it is taking it and
making it into that long A vowel sound. Our third
vowel sound is called an open or a broad a vowel
sound and this is when your jaw is physically
more open when you're pronouncing this sound.
This case, the a is pronounced as an ah sound.
If you're watching on YouTube, you can see the
difference in my jaw position when I am pronouncing
this particular vowel sound with the short vowel
sound of ah. my jaw is pretty closed and a little
bit more wide. With the long vowel sound of A,
my jaw is a little bit more open, but my lips
are a little bit closer together. And then with
this one, the open or the broad A vowel sound,
my jaw is the most open because I am pronouncing
it as an ah sound. One way to tell this vowel
sound is if you have the letter A followed by
a W. In English, when we are writing out the
sound ah, this is how we write it. And so you
will see words that have this spelling and that
is a very big cue for you to use this particular
vowel sound. Examples of these words are paw,
law, straw. All of those have an A -W right next
to each other in the spelling, and that's when
we're making this ah sound. The A -W spelling
is the easiest way to know that you're going
to make that sound. However, there are some words
that don't have A and W in the spelling, but
still use this pronunciation. Usually, these
are words that have the A followed by the letter
M, R, or L. But not always, and that's what makes
it a little bit tricky. Here are some examples
of words that do not have the AW spelling, but
still have this AW pronunciation. The word spa.
S -P -A. It does not end with a W, but that vowel
sound of that A does become an AW sound. Spa.
Another example is father. Again, it doesn't
have a W, but it still has that ah sound. And
if you're watching on YouTube, you can see how
my jaw opens when I pronounce the first syllable,
which has the A in it, compared to the second
syllable of the word. Father. Father. The fourth
vowel sound is the schwa sound. And this is another
thing that is common in all of the vowels. The
schwa vowel sound can actually be any... vowel
and it occurs when the vowel is pronounced as
an uh sound. So you get this sound that is uh
and it could be an a, an e, an i, an o. It really
could be any vowel and there are examples for
every single vowel with this sound. For example,
I live in the United States of America and in
that word we actually have the schwa vowel sound.
Did you hear it? If you didn't, let me try to
pronounce it one more time and see if you can
hear that schwa vowel sound. America. America.
In the word America, there are two A's. The mer
part of America is the syllable that is stressed.
America. America. That means that the other two
syllables are not stressed. So the beginning
A and the ending A, those two syllables that
have those two letters are not stressed. And
because they're not stressed, they get pronounced
as an uh sound. I have noticed that people who
are learning English, people who are not from
the United States, tend to pronounce America
more in a way that actually makes an A sound,
maybe a short A or a long A. And that's not how
a native speaker is going to pronounce it. We
turn those into schwa sounds. So when you pronounce
it, you really want to turn it into that schwa
sound, a UH type sound, and pronounce it America.
America. Another example here is the word banana.
Banana has multiple A's. And I've noticed with
especially my Spanish speaking students, they
will want to pronounce every A in that word.
That is not how you're going to pronounce it.
You want to make sure you are not stressing that
last syllable. And because it is not stressed,
you need to turn it into a schwa sound. So we're
going to pronounce this banana, banana. The fifth
vowel sound is called an R -colored A vowel sound.
This is when you have the letter A followed by
the letter R. Usually when you put these two
letters together, it gets pronounced like air,
like the word A -I -R, the air that we breathe.
That's usually the pronunciation that we use
when we see this spelling. Examples of this are
care, bear, dare. All of them have that A followed
by the R consonant. Another example is parent.
If you look at the spelling, it has P -A -R -E
-N -T. So because you have an A and an R, we're
going to pronounce that as that air vowel sound,
parent, parent. You can also get this sound when
you have A -I -R, like in the word air, also
in the word fair or fairies. That still has that
same vowel sound in it. And the last vowel sound
is actually not that common. This is not one
that I use in my accent, but it might be something
that you hear, especially if you go more on the
eastern coast of the United States. There is
a very particular accent that can have this sound
to it. If you visit the city of New York, if
you meet someone who is a New Yorker, someone
who was born and raised in Brooklyn or the Bronx,
somewhere in New York City, they might have this
accent. Again, this is not very common, but it's
just kind of fun. And if you watch a TV show
that has a character who is clearly a New Yorker,
they might have this accent when they talk. This
is when you take the letter A and you kind of
make it more into an O sound with an O -W. So,
for example, the word talk. T -A -L -K. I pronounce
it talk. However, if you're someone who uses
this vowel sound, you will pronounce it talk.
Talk. I'm talking. The way I talk? What's wrong
with the way I talk? Very different from my vowel
pronunciation, but again, it might be something
that you hear. If you have ever seen the TV show
King of Queens, there is an actress on that show.
She's actually the main actress. Her name is
Leah Remini, and her character in the show has
that accent because I believe she has that accent
herself. She was born and raised, I believe,
in Brooklyn. If you want to hear more examples
of this accent and this pronunciation, I would
recommend watching that TV show and you can hear
how her character speaks in that show. Work on
your trouble words again. Talk. I'm sorry, did
we start spelling talk T -A -W -K and no one
told me? No. I know English is difficult. I know
there are so many vowel sounds and it can get
really confusing. So I hope that this helped
you. Like I said, my goal in the future is to
do more episodes about the different vowels,
the different vowel sounds, so you can keep practicing
and improving your pronunciation. If you want
me to continue with this series, if you want
me to do more pronunciation episodes, please
leave me a comment. Let me know if you want more
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