hello and welcome back to easy english
with james in this new series we are
going to look at all of the sounds of
english we're going to do it by looking
at the alphabet and we're going to go a
b c
all the way through until you have
mastered every sound in english okay so
this is the first lesson this is the
letter a
okay if you want to know how many ways
this letter can be pronounced in english
stick with me for this lesson
[Music]
it looks like just one letter but there
are seven ways to pronounce this letter
in english
we're going to have a good listen today
at all the different ways we can
pronounce this sound all seven of them
okay starting with number one number one
is the a as in
cat
or
rack
or exactly
or even
actually and had
this is that
a sound ah say it with me
okay it looks like this the ipa
transcription looks like this
for a practice sentence with this try
this
actually that cat had exactly 10 apples
lots of
one more time try it with me repeat this
after me
actually that cat had exactly 10 apples
ok rewind if you need to practice some
more we're going straight to number two
okay number two is the a as in
rare
care
share
prepare
rare
care
share
and prepare this is that famous
diphthong sound air
air
diphthongs mean two sounds two vowel
sounds combined together so you'll
notice we start with that air and we end
with a schwa air
air
air it can be important if you want to
practice to move your head like this air
air
just to practice don't go around outside
like air air air because you'll look
crazy okay but the sound for this one is
air
air listen to the word care
care
or prepare
to practice this one repeat this
sentence
prepare to share it's rare to care
repeat after me
prepare to share
it's rare to care
okay practice that one again and let's
go to number three the third sound
number three is the a as in
father or
rather or
car
or
bar
this is that long vowel sound ah
ah
mouth wide open ah
ah just like when you go to the doctors
and they ask to see your mouth ah
ah okay it actually sounds like the
letter in the alphabet r okay it's how
we pronounce that letter in the alphabet
ah
ah in british english it's not rhotic
which means we don't round it like this
we just say ah the long
vowel ah
so practice the words father
father and
rather
and
car and bar you'll notice that before
the letter r if the a is before r it's
normally always
okay to practice this repeat after me
father i'd rather not go to the bar in
my car
father i'd rather not go to the bar in
my car okay your turn father i'd rather
not go to the bar in my car
okay rewind again if you need to
practice that some more we're gonna have
a look at number four okay number four
is the a as in call
or hall
or tall
or even walk
and saw
and law
now you'll notice before a w law and saw
also before two l's whole and tall
this is when we the a is pronounced like
all
all and look at the shape of my mouth oh
it's that oh
really really long vowel sound very long
in english and the mouth has to sort of
go crush together and then down like
this or
or
listen
whole
tall
wall behind me there's a wall
wall
okay
to practice this sentence try this i
walked through the hall and i saw the
tall man calling the law
the law sometimes is a slang word for
the police in parts of america and some
parts of england so if you're saying i'm
calling the law it can mean i'm calling
the police
i walked through the hall and i saw the
tall man calling the law
repeat after me i walked through the
hall and i saw the tall man
calling the law
okay well done let's have a look at
number five okay number five is the a as
in pay
way
stay
cable
able
table and fable okay that a sound this
one's easy because it is the sound that
you look at that you say when you see
the letter a in the alphabet the letter
in the alphabet when we look at it we
say a
a
and in the ipa it looks like an e and a
little i okay a
a
this way
this way to the table
able
fable okay you'll see again that when
it's before b l e able fable stable
table it is always pronounced as an a
a a
except in some crazy words where it's at
the end like manageable okay manageable
little bit different okay
repeat after me i'm not able to pay the
cable bill
i'm not able to pay the cable bill
one more time i'm not able to pay the
cable bill
okay well done let's go straight to
number six
okay number six is the a as in words
like private and climate and in some
accidents words like legitimate as well
legitimate okay
this can often be changed for another
sound which we will look at as number
seven the schwa sound but in many
accents especially in britain or the uk
private will be pronounced with a short
so you'll see the a here is
private
private and climate climate okay many
other accents change these sounds to a
schwa so they'll say climate and private
okay
private and climate to have a go with
this sound practice this sentence
my views on the climate are legitimate
but private
my views on the climate are legitimate
but private
my views on the climate are legitimate
but private now legitimate you probably
don't know what that means legitimate is
when something is real or true okay if
you have a legitimate view it's a view
that other people will know is real and
truthful based on
real knowledge that's out there okay
something that is legitimate is
something that is not fake it's not fake
and it's not false legitimate okay
number seven is the a as in the schwa
sound okay number one most common sound
in english the schwa sound if you want
to practice it make sure that you look
for my schwa video up here but this is
the most common way that you'll see this
letter a pronounced in english whenever
a vowel is unstressed whenever that a is
not stressed especially at the beginning
of words like about
around
amazing okay it is a schwa sound okay
also in uh an um two of the most common
words in english a man
an amazing woman okay a man an amazing
woman
they are very commonly confused many
students of english pronounce them ah an
an which sounds horrible it sounds crazy
in english to pronounce them that way
make sure that you're using the schwa
sound
now a common word with this schwa sound
in with the letter a pronounced as a
schwa is banana
banana so try this an amazing banana
an amazing banana
an amazing banana um
uh
amazing
lots of schwa sounds in there
let's make it a little bit longer an
amazing banana for around a pound
an amazing banana for around a pound
a pound that looks like this it's what
we use it's money in england an amazing
banana for around a pound it must be a
very amazing banana to be just one pound
okay an amazing banana for around a
pound repeat after me an amazing banana
for around a pound
an amazing banana
for around a pound lots of schwa sounds
in there i wonder if you can tell me how
many schwa sounds are in that sentence
okay
now we're going to look at a sentence
which will help you practice all seven
of these a sounds in one sentence okay
this is a tough sentence i've got to
remember it okay so try this for an
amazing sentence that will help you to
master the a sound
an average father may share all he has
i want you to practice this sentence
100 times as many times as you can
because it contains every single a sound
and it'll also help your brain
understand and feel where the a sounds
come in this sentence what letters are
around the a okay
an average father may share all he has
okay
look at all the different a sounds in
that sentence
um you've got that uh
average you've got that ah and
in edge average okay
father you've got that ah
then may you've got a
a the diphthong sound a okay then you've
got share another diphthong
air share
all that long vowel sound super long all
and then he has that ah sound again at
the end okay practice that sentence as
many times as you need to
okay this is a bonus to this lesson and
in the bonus part of this lesson i'm
going to teach you some secrets about
the letter a there are some special
cases for example
you've learned all of the seven
ways to pronounce this a sound but there
is some hidden ways that are very very
rare
not including those seven sounds we can
also very rarely pronounce the a as an e
in words like any
and
many and the river in london the river
thames
okay this is very
very rare you will not find this very
much in english it will take you a long
time to find more than these three words
okay but do remember that in many
and any and thames
the a is pronounced not as any of those
seven sounds but as an e
e
any and the river thames
we also have strange words in english
that people always fight over how to
pronounce words like
data
data okay you'll see this has two a's in
it
de
tu
and many people pronounce it like that
with an a
and a
schwa sound at the end but there are
many other people who argue that is
wrong and it should be pronounced data
with a long r sound data
so you will hear this across the english
speaking world
about 50 percent of people will say data
and about 50 of people will say data
data data remember both data data it's
really good to practice three of those a
sounds okay you've got a as in data and
you've got r as in data both of them
finish in that schwa sound data data
okay now the letter a can also sometimes
not be pronounced at all it can be
silent it can be a silent a in words
like basically
that final a
we can't see it it's gone basically
basically
also in words like separately
separately you can't really hear an a in
there anywhere separately okay
separately
in words like automatically
automatically whenever you see that lly
and sometimes l y at the end if there's
an a
we don't need it okay that is where we
can see there is a silent a
we don't pronounce it okay repeat after
me
typically
automatically
basically
basically okay practice those silent
sounds there's not many it's usually
always before an l y or an lly okay but
remember the letter a can sometimes be
silent in english too
okay let's move on finally in the word
what
now you didn't hear this in the seven
sounds again but it's a very common word
what is your name
that's because this is a very particular
pronunciation it's one of the only words
in english where the letter a is
pronounced as an o
o
as in on or top okay is it like an o
sound the ipa
what so the last thing i want you to
practice today is to remember that the
seven a sounds
perfect remember them all but the word
what is an exception it is an o here the
a sound is pronounced
okay what did you think of that lesson i
hope you really enjoyed it and found it
useful there is another lesson the
letter b is next we're going to go all
the way through to the letter z okay the
letter z so stick with me if you want to
watch the rest of these lessons make
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that you don't miss c d e f g h i j k l
m n o p q r s v rst uvw xyz okay
well done and i'll see you for another
lesson bye
you