In this American English Pronunciation video, we're going to learn how to pronounce the
EW as in FEW diphthong.
Diphthongs are a combination of two sounds.
They have a starting position and an ending position.
The first sound is the Y consonant.
Diphthongs are normally made up of two vowel sounds.
But in this case, the Y consonant is acting as a vowel.
For example, in the word 'music'.
The Y sound goes with the OO vowel to make a diphthong rather than with M consonant
to make a consonant cluster.
Music.
To make the Y sound, the jaw drops a little bit.
The lips may be relaxed or they may begin rounding for the ending position.
The tongue tip is down, lightly touching the back of the bottom front teeth.
The mid-front part of the tongue lifts and touches the roof of the mouth about here.
It pushes forward against the roof of the mouth before pulling away.
As we move the tongue on the roof of the mouth, we close the vocal chords to get this sound...
which we add to the sound...
We release it the same time we release the tongue.
To transition into the next sound, we release right into the position of the OO as in BOO vowel.
The tongue tip doesn't need to move.
It remains touching the back of the bottom front teeth.
The back part of the tongue lifts towards the soft palette.
The lips round.
Let's study a word with this sound: USE.
Jaw drops just a little bit as the tongue lifts and presses forward against the roof of the mouth.
The lips flare in preparation for the rounding at the end of the diphthong.
Tongue releases, lifts in the back, and the lips round.
In a stressed syllable, the EW diphthong curves up then down.
Use.
Ew.
In an unstressed syllable, it's lower and flatter in pitch as well as quieter and quicker.
Ew.
The diphthong is unstressed in the word 'interview'.
Ew.
Let's take a look at the word 'interview'.
A little bit of lip rounding in the first position of the diphthong but in the ending
position, the lip rounding is subtle.
Not like in a stressed EW diphthong.
Let's compare the ending position of the stressed EW diphthong above
with the unstressed diphthong below.
In the stressed version, the lips round much more.
Generally, the unstressed version of a vowel or diphthong is more relaxed
and doesn't take the full mouth position.
In this case, less lip rounding.
This is because we don't take this much time for unstressed syllables.
They're shorter so we simplify the mouth movements.
EW stressed.
Use.
EW.
Unstressed.
Interview.
Ew.
EW.
Ew.
EW.
Ew.
Example words.
Repeat with me.
Music.
EW.
Music.
Continue.
Ew.
Continue.
Review.
EW.
Review.
Unite.
Ew.
Unite.
Union.
EW.
Union.
Future.
EW.