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  • Hello everyone and welcome back to Pronunciation with Emma. Today we're going to be looking

  • at the sounds /əʊ/ and /ɔː/. Now a lot of my students get influenced by the spelling,

  • so this /əʊ/ sound appears quite a lot in words where there should actually be an /ɔː/

  • sound. You'll see what I mean, I'll show you some examples today, but firstly, let's have

  • a look at how we actually pronounce them. So the first one is a diphthong, meaning that

  • it's basically two vowel sounds together in the same syllable, and we transition from

  • one to the other. So we have /əʊ/ /əʊ/, we're moving from an /ə/ so an /ʊ/ sound,

  • /əʊ/. The other one /ɔː/ is just one long vowel sound, /ɔː/. Let's have a look at

  • some minimal pairs. So/Sew/Sow, saw. Boat, bought. Now this is one that I talked about

  • earlier where many people are influenced by the spelling, so that "ou" in "bought" is

  • not an /əʊ/, it's just one long vowel sound, /ɔː/, bought, then just add that intonation,

  • bought. [listen to Emma] Now be careful with that cause I do hear some students saying

  • "fok" and that sounds quite close to a bad word in English, so make sure you get that

  • vowel length a little big longer. Fork. For example, knife and fork, not knife and fok.

  • Low, law, again this is another one where some people think "ah, there's a W in there

  • so it must be a /w/", it's "lau" or "lou", but it's just one vowel sound, law. Start

  • with that vowel /ɔː/, then add the other sounds, law. Let's have a look at some sentences.

  • The cat's claws came close to my face. The cat's claws came close to my face. The child

  • had been moaning about his game all morning. The child had been moaning about his game

  • all morning. That's one thing you'll also notice that in "morning" we don't pronounce

  • that "r" in British English, there are some varieties where they do pronounce that "r",

  • but in standard RP they don't. Morning. That's it for this video, I hope you've enjoyed it.

  • Before we go, why not write down some more minimal pairs with /əʊ/ and /ɔː/ down

  • in the comments and I'll have a check and make sure you've got the right words there

  • with the right sounds. Have a fantastic week and, as always, I'll see you next lesson.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Pronunciation with Emma. Today we're going to be looking

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