Hi there Jennifer from Tarle speech with your question of the week.
We have two words today: medicine - the science of diagnosing
treatment or prevention of disease and
Madison which is a girl's name, a city in Wisconsin, or a street in New York City.
So we have our words medicine and Madison.
Three beats in each of these words and each word is going to end with
the same two syllables so let's knock that out.
We have the short uh - the schwa syllable; and then we end with syllable three which is sin.
We start with the s: sss. Tip of the tongue is either pointed down or behind the top front
teeth. It is not touching. Air continues to move out. We’re going to have a relaxed mouth for that
short ih. And then the tip of your tongue touches the back of your top front teeth for that n nnn as
the air moves out of your nose. Now I wrote this as sin but because it is an unstressed relaxed
vowel you can think of also saying sun or sen as long as it is short and as long as it is quick.
All right what's the difference between the med and the mad? Let's break this down. We're going
to start with the m mm. Lips are together, air is moving out of the nose. For the d, at the end,
going to touch the tip of the tongue to the back of the top front teeth.
Very specifically to the spot where the teeth
meet the roof of the mouth. Air is going to puff out and your voice box is on and moving.
What's the difference between these vowels? Let's start with that very American open a sound.
To make this sound you're going to open your mouth in a very wide circle shape ah. Tip of your tongue
is really low in the front bottom of the mouth, back of the tongue is pulled really high up,
ah. As I always say, exaggerate these sounds when you're practicing. There's no shame in that game!
Open your mouth really wide get your tongue low in the front, high in the back, ah.
Really think about moving from that closed mouth.
You really have to move. It's closed, really open, almost closed again.
mad mad mad
Now for med. This is what people usually say and this is a more closed relaxed e
sound. So we have ah eh. For the eh sound, my mouth is slightly open.
You can see the tip of my tongue between my top and bottom teeth.
The back of my tongue is sort of anchored towards the um insides of my back top teeth. eh
So again, you can see the tip of my tongue, my mouth is slightly open, the back of my
tongue is a little bit higher up, and kind of anchored by the um insides of my back top teeth.
Let's put that all together med med med
and mad mad mad
Let's try this all together medicine medicine medicine
madison madison madison
medicine madison medicine madison
And now for a sentence:
Please pick up the medicine at the Madison pharmacy.
Give it a try I know people are going to notice the difference. You know what I love,
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Thanks so much everyone and I will see you again soon!