Hello everyone and welcome back to Pronunciation with Emma. Today we're going to be looking
at the sounds /əʊ/ and /ɔː/. Now a lot of my students get influenced by the spelling,
so this /əʊ/ sound appears quite a lot in words where there should actually be an /ɔː/
sound. You'll see what I mean, I'll show you some examples today, but firstly, let's have
a look at how we actually pronounce them. So the first one is a diphthong, meaning that
it's basically two vowel sounds together in the same syllable, and we transition from
one to the other. So we have /əʊ/ /əʊ/, we're moving from an /ə/ so an /ʊ/ sound,
/əʊ/. The other one /ɔː/ is just one long vowel sound, /ɔː/. Let's have a look at
some minimal pairs. So/Sew/Sow, saw. Boat, bought. Now this is one that I talked about
earlier where many people are influenced by the spelling, so that "ou" in "bought" is
not an /əʊ/, it's just one long vowel sound, /ɔː/, bought, then just add that intonation,
bought. [listen to Emma] Now be careful with that cause I do hear some students saying
"fok" and that sounds quite close to a bad word in English, so make sure you get that
vowel length a little big longer. Fork. For example, knife and fork, not knife and fok.
Low, law, again this is another one where some people think "ah, there's a W in there
so it must be a /w/", it's "lau" or "lou", but it's just one vowel sound, law. Start
with that vowel /ɔː/, then add the other sounds, law. Let's have a look at some sentences.
The cat's claws came close to my face. The cat's claws came close to my face. The child
had been moaning about his game all morning. The child had been moaning about his game
all morning. That's one thing you'll also notice that in "morning" we don't pronounce
that "r" in British English, there are some varieties where they do pronounce that "r",
but in standard RP they don't. Morning. That's it for this video, I hope you've enjoyed it.
Before we go, why not write down some more minimal pairs with /əʊ/ and /ɔː/ down
in the comments and I'll have a check and make sure you've got the right words there
with the right sounds. Have a fantastic week and, as always, I'll see you next lesson.