Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Hello, I'm John Russell.

  • Let's talk about vowel sounds in American English.

  • There are about 15 of them.

  • Vowels include sounds like a or E in comparison to constant sounds.

  • Vowels generally require a whiter opening in the mouth.

  • Also, the owls often have less obstruction of the Airstream.

  • Pronunciation experts usually talk about a few key ways to think about vowel sounds.

  • Imagine your mouth is like a three by three box.

  • First, you need to think about your tongue.

  • Your tongue can be at a low level, a medium level or a high level.

  • Your tongue can also be more up in the front, middle or back of your mouth.

  • Second, you need to think about your lips and facial muscles.

  • Your lips and facial muscles can be either tense or they could be relaxed.

  • Your lips can be rounded or not rounded.

  • In future episodes.

  • We will show you how to use these ideas to produce the vowel sounds of American English.

Hello, I'm John Russell.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it