hey there Jennifer from Tarle speech with your pronunciation question today's
question is a long one how do I pronounce the words star stare stir and
steer let's take a look I think this question really comes down to the are
vowels but let's start with that S T and a mistake that I hear some students make
I hear a lot of people add a vowel sound here and say a star a stair a stair a
stir a steer and to the listener that might sound like you're adding the
article ah or the letter A to the word so someone might interpret that as you
saying a star or a star instead of just saying start so to avoid adding that
extra vowel just make sure you're starting this word out by just letting
that air move out of your mouth for that s sssssT and then stop it by touching the tip
of your tongue to the back of your top front teeth
okay now to get into the r vowel spelling is not super helpful here so
for the word star we're going to say the are vowel for stare good news these are
pronounced the same I love a BOGO a buy one get one free we're going to say air
for stir we're just going to say an er and then for steer we're going to
say ear so I wrote these out here as we would spell them so hopefully that helps
you so let's start up here with the star you're going to say the our vowel by
opening your mouth wide and in oval do not pucker your lips this is a mistake I
see probably the most open your mouth wide ARE and then move to that ER sound and
again since most of you probably have watched my videos you know that the tip
of your tongue can be down in the bottom of your mouth with the
back of your tongue pulled up for the ER or the tip of your tongue can be flipped
back it's whatever works best for you just don't flap that tongue don't move
it keep it nice and stable and hold that sound for just a little extra second so
it's nice and long and strong so we have are next we have air it looks somewhat
similar but for this sound instead of opening and an oval like you do for the
are we're gonna open in a wide circle air air and then for the ER super easy
just one sound the think about square tense lips and then the tip of the tongue
down or flipped back and then lastly for steer we're going to smile ear and then
move to those square lips that are tense and get your tongue in that down
position or back position for the er so let's try those all together are air
er ear and let's add those to the st star stare stir steer steer stir stare
star so the celebrity chef tried to steer the audience down the stairs
because he did not want them to stare at him as he was trying to stir the cookie
dough to make star cookies give it a try I know people are going to notice the
difference if you found this helpful we'd love a like a share and subscribe
don't forget we'd love to hear from you so please leave your comments in the
comment section below and check out our products on Google Play iTunes and our
classes on Tarle Speech thanks so much everyone we'll see you soon