Learn the IPA | [æ] vs [ɑ]

[æ] [ɑ] In today's pronunciation lesson, we are going to talk about 2 pretty confusing IPA symbols. The [æ] sound and the [ɑ] sound. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another lesson with English with Kristina, helping you to tell your story in English, where we cover English pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and basic tips and tricks.

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Without further ado, let's begin our lesson. Our first IPA symbol that we are going to cover today is going to be the [æ] diphthong. The [æ] sound, it looks like an A and an E kind of joining forces, right, they're joined together.

I'll put that up here so that you can see it. You have [æ] the A and E put together and this can be a particularly challenging sound for many non-native English speakers because it is a very tense sound and also you have to open your mouth rather significantly to make this sound. To make the [æ] sound, your mouth is going to be wide open, you can see here when I say, [æ], I've got about this much space between my lips.

[æ] [æ], my lips are tense, [æ] [æ] and it's almost like I'm trying to pull them back into a smile, but with my mouth open. A very strange kind of smile. [æ] [æ] [æ].

Now the tongue should be flat on the floor of the mouth, [æ] [æ], with the very tip right behind your lower front teeth. [æ] [æ] [æ]. Now with all of this, your lips tense, your mouth wide open, and flat tongue on the floor of your mouth, this is going to make the [æ] sound.

Do not be afraid to open up your mouth too much with the [æ] sound. What happens is a lot of non-native English speakers tend to feel a little bit shy of opening their mouth so much, so instead they'll say eh, eh, eh, and it'll come out as a completely different vowel sound. You can't do that English, you have to pronounce the [æ] sound when appropriate.

Some words that you could use with this [æ] sound are: cat, cat, apple, [æ] [æ] apple. Last. Lah ah, last.

Now to practice this sound repetitively, I've created a little tongue twister for you guys. Try to repeat it as many times as possible with the appropriate [æ] sound. Here we go.

The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat. Okay, let's go a little bit more slowly. The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat.

Notice my lips in all of these - let's see if we can make it in slow motion for you. The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat. So after practicing this repetitively, hopefully you'll be able to pronounce this at least slowly.

So then what I want you to do is speed it up and try practicing pronouncing this tongue twister more quickly. So we said it slowly, the fat cat sat on the rat with the hat. Now let's say it quickly.

The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat. The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat. The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat.

The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat. The fat cat sat on the rat with the hat. Phew!

It's challenging even for me! But don't worry if you are not at that level yet, okay, you will get there, but repetition is key. You absolutely have to practice making this noise and this sound and studying the shape of your mouth and your tongue in the mirror constantly so that you can develop that muscle memory for the proper position of your mouth so that you don't even have to think about it later when you're speaking English.

This is one of the keys to practicing good pronunciation. Our next IPA symbol is going to be the [ɑ] sound, which basically looks like a rounded A, okay? [ɑ].

[ɑ]. This is the same sound in words like father, modern, hot. Now, whereas the spelling for the [æ] sound is only spelled with an A, the [ɑ] might be spelled with an A or an O.

So an example with the A would be father, whereas an example with the O would be modern. Father, [ɑ] [ɑ] [ɑ], modern. [ɑ] [ɑ] [ɑ].

Now the key with the [ɑ] is that your lips should be apart enough as if you're yawning. Ah. And your tongue should be relaxed and flat on the floor of your mouth.

It's not tense, your lips are not tense either, your lips should be relaxed. But you're going to look like you're yawning. Ah.

Ah. Ah. There's going to be a circle here, your lips are going to form a circle - ah, ah, ah.

You'll probably feel a little bit of muscle contraction right here as well. Ah ah ah. Just very very slight muscle contraction there.

To make sure you're opening your mouth wide enough when pronouncing this "ah" sound, try to stick your finger just between your upper and lower teeth. Ah, ah, ah. You're going to stick your index finger in between your teeth.

Ah, ah. If you can't stick your finger in between your teeth, then you know you're not opening your mouth wide enough to say this sound properly. Ah, ah, ah.

Cap versus cop. Ka ah ap, versus kah ah op. Add versus odd.

Ah ah add versus ah ah odd. Sack versus sock. A a, sack versus sah ah sock.

Sack. Sock. And so now to tie it all together in one great big tongue twister to help you really mix and match these different sounds and hopefully not confuse them, I want you to practice this tongue twister.

The cop's cap was really a hot hat. The cop's cap was really a hot hat. The cop's cap was really a hot hat.

The cop's cap was really a hot hat. So everybody I hope this pronunciation lesson has been helpful for you. Like I said, if you have any other questions or comments about any particular words or sounds in English that are just making you crazy and you don't know how to pronounce them, then let me know in the comments below so I can show you how to pronounce them in a future video.

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