In this American English pronunciation video, we're going to go over the pronunciation of
the word 'very'.
This week's Word of the Week is 'very'. 'Very' is a two-syllable word with stress on the
first syllable. Ver-y, ver-y, very, very. It begins with the V consonant sound. If you
come from India, look out. You might want to make it a [w], ww, where your lips round.
But it's a V, vv, where the bottom lip comes up and makes contact with the top teeth. Vv,
vv, ve-. Then we have the EH as in BED vowel. The jaw needs to drop for that. Ve-, ve-.
Next we have the R consonant. That can be tough. And in this word a lot of people will
want to flap the R, where the front part of the tongue bounces off the roof of the mouth.
We do not want this position. We want this position, where the middle part of the tongue
stretches up and touches the roof of the mouth, about here. Ver-. The front part of the tongue
doesn't touch anything, and you should be able to hold out that sound. Very. And finally,
the EE as in SHE vowel, unstressed, to finish the word. Very, very. I'm very sorry.
That's it, your Word of the Week. Try it out yourself. Make up a sentence with
the word, record it, and post it as a video response to this video on YouTube. I can't
wait to watch it.
That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.