'Bag' and 'bug' can you tell the difference?
Hello and welcome to Go Global with Michael Roberts! In this video, I'm going to be helping you,
to pronounce and tell the difference between the two words 'bag' and 'bug'.
Okay, the important thing here are the two sounds: /æ/ and/ʌ/. So this is what we're going to be learning.
I've made this video in response to a question from one of my viewers. So thank you very much,
for getting in touch and requesting this video. Let's get down to the exercise.
So we've got two sounds that we need to learn to tell the difference between and to learn how to pronounce.
They are /æ/ and /ʌ/. Okay, /æ/ and /ʌ/. Now if you're paying attention to my mouth you're going to see,
that with both sounds my mouth is wide open /æ/-/ʌ/, /æ/-/ʌ/. Okay, the length of the vowel sound,
is the same. It's short. Very short the the difference is where the sound comes from, in the mouth.
When I say the sound /æ/ my tongue is at the front of my mouth and the sound comes from,
front of my mouth. When I say /ʌ/ my tongue is pulled towards the back of my mouth,
and the sound comes from the back of my mouth. So the way to learn to tell the difference between
the two sounds, is to practice them both. So if you're ready copy me:
/æ/-/ʌ/
Okay practice doing that and then once you're comfortable doing that,
here's what you do next: we're gonna take the word that we want to learn to tell the difference in between.
So two words in this case 'bag' and 'bug' and we're going to do exactly the same exercise ready?
'bag' 'bug'.
Okay, copy me doing that and practice it until it feels natural.
What you can do is record yourself doing that and watch yourself back and listen to yourself back,
to tell if you are actually making enough of a difference between the sounds.
If you're not, spend more time just practising making the two sounds, to begin with.
Practice going: /æ/-/æ/-/æ/ or /ʌ/-/ʌ/-/ʌ/.
Okay and then go back to the exercise: /æ/ - /ʌ/ and then 'bag', 'bug', 'bag', 'bug'.
Alright, to finish off the video,
what I'm going to do is go through some other pairs of words that have the same difficult two sounds in /æ/ and /ʌ/.
So if you also struggle with these words you're going to be able to do the same,
practice the exercise and get better at telling the difference between both of them ready?
'mag', 'mug'
Alright, that's the first words: mag and mug ready?
'Bang' and 'bung'
Next: 'lag', 'lag'
'Lag', 'lag'
Alright a little more difficult this time: 'Banker', 'bunker'.
'Banker', 'bunker'.
And just finally: 'dabble', 'double'
'dabble', 'double'
Alright 'dabble' and 'double'.
So here's your homework go through the video again. Practice the /æ/ - /ʌ/ exercise.
Then practice the same exercise but using words and then when you're ready you can go to another video that I've created,
especially for these two sounds that's going to test your recognition between 10 pairs of these similar-sounding words.
Okay so get practising put in the effort and you're going to be really pleased with the progress!
Okay like the video if it's helped you
and, show your support. Subscribe to the channel for more videos like this to the coming out on a weekly basis
and I look forward to seeing you in the next video take care!