The Days of the Week:
Monday, Monday is spelled with an O, but it is pronounced as the ‘UH’ as in ‘BUTTER’. Monday.
Now all of the days of the week, of course, end in the word ‘day’, and it is pronounced the same
in each of these days of the week, with the AY Diphthong.
Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday.
Wednesday. Now, Wednesday is spelled with a D, but that D is silent.
Wedn-es-day, Wednesday, Wednesday.
Thursday. The TH that begins this sound is unvoiced: Th. Thurs-day.
So with this we have that tricky UR [ɜ] vowel-consonant mix.
So we go from the Th straight to that uurr straight to the zz.
So in a way, there is no real pure vowel sound in that first syllable. Thursday.
Friday. It’s spelled with an I but it’s pronounced the Diphthong ai, ai, Fri-, Friday, Friday.
Saturday. Now this is, of course, spelled with a T, Sat-, but it is pronounced as a D, Sadder.
Just like ‘I am sad, and now I’m sadder; it’s pronounced exactly the same way.
Saturday. Saturday.
Sunday. Sunday is very straight-forward, isn’t it? Sunday.
Now to focus on, how the sound looks in the mouth, and not just how it sounds to the ear.
I’m going to step through the beginning sound for each of these days of the week.
Here you can see the M sound being formed. The lips are still together,
but the teeth are already starting to separate within the mouth,
which is why the lips look a little bit pulled. This is the sound for ‘Tuesday’.
You can see the teeth are together to make that Tt, tt, sound
and the corners of the lips are starting to come in to make that OO sound.
And this is the Ww Wednesday sound. As you can see, the lips have come in to make this OO shape,
which is critical for correctly pronouncing the W sound. This is the Th sound for Thursday.
In this Th sound, the tongue must come out from the teeth.
It’s a little bit harder to see here because my bottom lip is covering up my bottom teeth.
But you can see that tongue, still, coming out underneath the top teeth.
The Ff, Friday sound. Here, the bottom lip is coming up and touching the very bottom of the top
front teeth, Ff. And you can see that the mouth is not completely relaxed because you see a little
bit of tension in the cheeks around the corners of the mouth.
Here we have the ss sound, which begins both Saturday and Sunday. Ss. Again,
it is not so clear to see in speaking because my bottom lip is covering up my bottom teeth.
They have come together so that the air can release to make that Ss sound.
Now I’m going to show the photos in random order, and I want you to guess, based on what you see,
what is that beginning sound, what is that Day of the Week.
If you are watching this video through my website, you can see the answers below the transcript.