In this English Pronunciation tutorial, you're going to learn how to tell the difference between
the /​ɔː/ sound in English as in 'court' and the /​ɒ/ sound in English as in 'cot.'
That's the long /​ɔː/ vowel sound
and the short /​ɒ/ vowel sound in English.
I'm going to give you a four-step process that I use with my clients to help them learn to tell the difference between these two English vowel sounds.
And at the end of the video I'm going to give you two simple sentences that you can take away
and practice to implement this sound into your English speech
so make sure that you watch until the end for that! And if you feel like you've still got room to improve your English speech
or you'd like to speak English with more confidence then make sure to subscribe and turn notifications on
for English pronunciation tutorials that come out like this on a weekly basis.
Let's dive in and get started with the lesson!
We're going to look at the /​ɔː/ sound to begin with first of all.
'Court,' 'fort,' 'brought,' 'taught,' okay /​ɔː/.
What do you notice?
/​ɔː/
My lips are rounded.
/​ɔː/
Okay? So long English vowel sounds
/​ɔː/ /​ɔː/.
My lips are rounded
/​ɔː/
The sound comes from the back of my mouth
/​ɔː/
That would be compared to /æ/
Where it comes from the front of my mouth
/​ɔː/
and just to put it into perspective if we look at
/​ɔː/, /u:/
/u:/ is my mouth is almost completely closed, /u:/.
/​ɔː/ the mouth is really wide open, okay.
I might just move out the way so I can see this van coming up behind us so let's just move over here.
You get different background for this part of the video, okay!
Now let's look at /​ɒ/.
/​ɒ/
'Box'
or 'fox'
or 'tot' or 'lot,' okay.
/​ɒ/
Have a listen
/​ɒ/
What do you notice?
1) It's a short English vowel sound.
/​ɒ/
Compare that to the long vowel sound /ɔː/.
/ɔː/ long, /​ɒ/ short
2) Lips rounded.
3) Again my mouth is nice and widely open
/​ɒ/
and 4) Coming from the back of my mouth.
/​ɒ/
Okay.
So now let me compare these two sounds. I'm going to go between the two of them
so you can see exactly the difference between my lips and my mouth when I make these two sounds.
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
Okay, do this with me okay might feel a bit strange but do it with me.
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
So, can you see when I do the short vowel sound /​ɒ/, my mouth is even more open
than it is for /​ɔː/ so
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
If you look on a vowel chart you'll see that for /​ɔː/ my mouth is 3/4 open, /​ɔː/.
For /​ɒ/ it is fully open.
/​ɒ/
Okay? Let's go back to the exercise.
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
If I look sideways on, so you can see my mouth from a sideways point of view,
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
The only two real differences between these two sounds is that /​ɔː/ is slightly more closed
than /​ɒ/, and /​ɔː/ is obviously a long vowel sound whereas /​ɒ/ is a short vowel sound.
So you've got the exercise there, practice making these two sounds look-- do what I'm doing here.
I'm looking into a camera to record this. You can look into your phone camera
and make sure that you're putting your mouth in the right position, do it now.
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
/​ɔː/
/​ɒ/
Okay!
Now, let's look at five examples of words that are exactly the same apart from these two English vowel sounds, alright?
Again you must be able to hear the difference between these kind of words
and also pronounce the difference. If not you're never going to be properly understood when you speak English.
Alright, so let's get started!
'Chord,' 'cod.'
Okay, a chord can be when you play the piano, one two three, three different notes play together could be a chord, or also on the guitar.
And a cod is the name for a kind of fish in English.
'Cod'
'Fawned'
And 'fond.'
'Fond'
'Fawned,' 'fond.'
Example three would be 'stalk.'
'Stalk'
And 'stock.'
'Stock'
'Stalk,' 'stock.'
Okay, a stalk could be the stalk of a plant.
But stalk also has a serious meaning in English, which is a different word pronounced the same and that's;
if I'm obsessed with someone and I'm following them and literally following them all the time
that's called stalking and that's obviously really bad.
'Stock'
If I sell a product for example and I've got loads of units of this product in my office, then that is called stock.
I've got stock of the products.
Example four would be:
'Caught,' 'cot.'
'I caught it!'
'I caught it.' I don't know, maybe there's something that I've been trying to catch and I caught it.
A balloon! The balloon was escaping and I managed to catch it.
I caught it.
'Cot'
A cot is what you put a baby in when they're really young and they're not big enough to sleep in a proper bed
they sleep in a baby bed which is called a cot.
And the fifth and final example would be
'Dork,' 'dock.'
Okay?
Dork is-- if someone's a bit kind of geeky in English
a kind of rude word for them is 'dork'.
'Dork'
It's a bit of an insult so you don't really want to say to anyone, it means they're a bit geeky.
And 'dock'.
'Dock'
A ship will dock in the port.
An iPhone will dock in the docking station.
'Dork,' 'dock.'
Now, let's look at two sentences that are really going to stress test your ability to make this sound
correctly in English speech and also help you to get comfortable putting it consistently into your English speech.
So, sentence one:
'The odds dog was obviously lost.'
And sentenced two:
'Four daughters walked to court.'
This one, in particular, is really going to get your lips feeling quite tense again.
'Four daughters walked court.'
There you have it! You've got four steps, you've got sentences to actually get comfortable implementing
this sound into your English speech, you've got examples of words that are identical apart from
these two sounds, you've learned the difference between these two sounds and you've also got a really really useful exercise
/​ɔː/, /​ɒ/
to practice going between these two sounds and getting comfortable making both sounds.
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