One won was a race horse, two too was one too, one won won the race, two too won too.
It’s the hardest tongue twister I’ve learnt in probably a decade. But my tongue twister
here will tell you exactly what I'm gonna talk about. It’s the uh oh, the O sound.
Hi my name is Emmelda and today we will be discovering how O is pronounced in English.
Look at the word, O. look at my jaw, O, practically my mouth looks like this. O, O, O so that's
O for us. However O takes four sounds. The first sound is, uh. Can’t believe it right?
But yes it does that the uh sound. One as in the number, one. It’s something like
wuh-uh; sorry that's uh, uh-n, one, one. Work, again it's w-uh-k, work. Work. Monday, sorry,
muhn-day, Monday. Come; come so you see O takes the uh sound. One, work, Monday, come,
sun, ton. So O takes the first sound as uh. One, work, Monday, come.
The second sound will be of AW, as in on. Can either write as aw, on or say you can
say corn, like what you have, corn. This is AW, on, turn on the fan, it's not turn ohn
the fan, it's turn AWn the fan. Cops, it's k, c most of the time will take the sound
of k.k, aw, cops. however if you come across C with another vowel like, with e then the
c will sound as c. otherwise c takes the k sound. Cops, k-awps, cops. Lost,
notice my mouth, lawst. l -awst. Blog, it’s bl, blawg. On, cops lost, blog, honest, hot,
coffee. So the O takes the AW sound when using in words such as on, cops, lost, blog, honest,
coffee, hot.
The next sound, the third sound we have is the O sound. Notice my mouth it's not aw,
but it's Oh. The original O sound. O, cold, again C becomes k, oh, cold. Phone, you can
practically write as F-ohn, phone. Cold, phone, I'm going very slow so that you're able to
concentrate on my mouth and how my jaw is dropping and coming back. Cold, phone, blower,
blower, chorus, ch again takes the k sound. Then you have Oh, cho, ris. So you have cold,
phone, blower, chorus. If you are flying to the US and if you are flying to London, their
accent is very different, you will know it and one way to find the difference or to identify
the accent, notice on the O sound. British will say, no, the mouth or the lip is quite
round, no. Americans will say no, they will actually drop the jaw and bring it back, no,
it's like no, the O is pretty much Oh, as if you are taking a burp, ohh, yeah something
very similar. But it's ohh, no.ohh. But British will say no, no, no. for example the word
coffee. British will say coffee, whereas Americans will say coffee. Coffee, coffee. Where shall
I write? I don't have space. Big handwriting, okay I'm gonna write somewhere here, okay.
This is different when they pronounce in London or when they pronounce in New York. It's coffee
for a New Yorker but for a British it's coffee. Coffee, what is my mouth? Coffee, coffee,
coffee, my mouth actually takes the O shape. O, coffee, if you are looking for a neutralized
accent, I would recommend you to go with O sound. Coffee, hot, unless you are in the
US, definitely you can take the other sound, hot. They probably will look differently at
you, if you have the British accent. Hot or hawt. So it's hot and oh people get confused.
It’s coffee if you are in America, you would say, cawffee. Coffee, cawffee. I am an honest
man, I am sorry, I am an honest woman, I am a woman, I’m sorry couldn’t get it wrong.
I'm an honest woman in New York but in London I'm an honest woman.
Okay the last sound would be of oo, as in ooh I love it. Yeah, oo, cool, fool, mood.
Cool, as in cool you'll have k-ool, cool. Fool, f-ool, fool. Mood, m-ood. Very simple,
this is very, very simple; you can get it right, most of the time. Why it becomes difficult
is because you are a non-native English speaker and you are just trying to learn in English,
I would recommend you, take one particular style, if you really want to learn English
faster and better. Don’t confuse between American and English. I gave you those two
sounds, is because you need to know how the mouth moves.so it's aw and o. but here it's
pretty much the same, it's like cool, fool, mood. Sometimes, very seldom sometimes O takes
the U sound or the oo sound. For example, good or would. These two words are just an
exception. You will come across many words which sound like oo. But they are actually
exceptional. They don't really follow these sounds, okay.
So you stick to the basic, three sounds, sorry 4 sounds. The first is uh, as in one, work,
Monday, come. Every time I see a Monday I think about my work or I have one work to
do on Monday. Then the aw sound, on, turn that on, it's not turn that ohn or cops. Okay
cops is a very American word. Okay this is an American word for police. It’s basically
a slang. So it's cops, c takes the k sound, awps, cops. Lost, l-aw as in you are doing
law. Yeah pretty much the same. Lost, blog. The last would be cold, phone, blower, chorus,
bold. What else? What else? I think yeah those five examples will be good. And the last one
would be oo. Cool, fool, mood. Yes we have an exception as good, would seldom but they
are very rare words. And the last thing that I want you to remember is the pronunciation
of O in America versus UK. It’s oh like No or O as in UK. So the moment a person opens
his or her mouth, you will be able to figure out what, if the person is American or Us,
I’m sorry American or London.
So this brings us to the end of our lesson. I hope you enjoyed learning the sound O with
us. I will come back with really new cool and new lessons, have fun learning English,
stay healthy, stay happy and stay beautiful, see you, bye.