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  • In this American English Pronunciation video, we're going to learn how to pronounce the

  • EW as in FEW diphthong.

  • Diphthongs are a combination of two sounds.

  • They have a starting position and an ending position.

  • The first sound is the Y consonant.

  • Diphthongs are normally made up of two vowel sounds.

  • But in this case, the Y consonant is acting as a vowel.

  • For example, in the word 'music'.

  • The Y sound goes with the OO vowel to make a diphthong rather than with M consonant

  • to make a consonant cluster.

  • Music.

  • To make the Y sound, the jaw drops a little bit.

  • The lips may be relaxed or they may begin rounding for the ending position.

  • The tongue tip is down, lightly touching the back of the bottom front teeth.

  • The mid-front part of the tongue lifts and touches the roof of the mouth about here.

  • It pushes forward against the roof of the mouth before pulling away.

  • As we move the tongue on the roof of the mouth, we close the vocal chords to get this sound...

  • which we add to the sound...

  • We release it the same time we release the tongue.

  • To transition into the next sound, we release right into the position of the OO as in BOO vowel.

  • The tongue tip doesn't need to move.

  • It remains touching the back of the bottom front teeth.

  • The back part of the tongue lifts towards the soft palette.

  • The lips round.

  • Let's study a word with this sound: USE.

  • Jaw drops just a little bit as the tongue lifts and presses forward against the roof of the mouth.

  • The lips flare in preparation for the rounding at the end of the diphthong.

  • Tongue releases, lifts in the back, and the lips round.

  • In a stressed syllable, the EW diphthong curves up then down.

  • Use.

  • Ew.

  • In an unstressed syllable, it's lower and flatter in pitch as well as quieter and quicker.

  • Ew.

  • Ew.

  • The diphthong is unstressed in the word 'interview'.

  • Ew.

  • Let's take a look at the word 'interview'.

  • A little bit of lip rounding in the first position of the diphthong but in the ending

  • position, the lip rounding is subtle.

  • Not like in a stressed EW diphthong.

  • Let's compare the ending position of the stressed EW diphthong above

  • with the unstressed diphthong below.

  • In the stressed version, the lips round much more.

  • Generally, the unstressed version of a vowel or diphthong is more relaxed

  • and doesn't take the full mouth position.

  • In this case, less lip rounding.

  • This is because we don't take this much time for unstressed syllables.

  • They're shorter so we simplify the mouth movements.

  • EW stressed.

  • Use.

  • EW.

  • Unstressed.

  • Interview.

  • Ew.

  • EW.

  • Ew.

  • EW.

  • Ew.

  • Example words.

  • Repeat with me.

  • Music.

  • EW.

  • Music.

  • Continue.

  • Ew.

  • Continue.

  • Review.

  • EW.

  • Review.

  • Unite.

  • Ew.

  • Unite.

  • Union.

  • EW.

  • Union.

  • Future.

  • EW.

  • Future.

  • This video is one of 36 in a new series, The Sounds of American English.

  • Videos in this set will be released here on YouTube twice a month, first and third Thursdays,

  • in 2016 and 2017.

  • But the whole set can be all yours right now.

  • The real value of these videos is watching them as a set, as a whole,

  • to give your mind the time to take it all in and get the bigger picture.

  • Most of the materials you'll find elsewhere just teach the sounds on their own in isolation.

  • It's a mistake to learn them this way.

  • We learn the sounds to speak words and sentences, not just sounds.

  • Move closer to fluency in spoken English.

  • But the video set today!

  • Visit rachelsenglish.com/sounds

  • Available as a DVD or digital download

In this American English Pronunciation video, we're going to learn how to pronounce the

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