Hello and welcome back to pronunciation with Emma. In this video we’re going to be looking
at the sound /ɑː/. Now this sound is usually, not always, but usually spelt “ar”. So
what a lot of students do is they try to pronounce that R, and there’s no problem with that
at all, however, I know that many of you watching this want to soften your accent and you maybe
want to sound a little bit more British. Well removing the R here, the /r/ sound, can really
help with that. Let’s have a look at how we pronounce the sound first, then look at
some words, and then I’ll give you some sentences to practise. Now the way I describe
this to my students is just to open your mouth slightly. You drop your jaw slightly. So it’s
not a very open wide sound like “a” as in “apple”. It’s a little bit more closed.
Not “oo”, not that closed, but a little bit more relaxed than an “a”, so you have
something like /ɑː/. Not “aaa”, /ɑː/. Let’s take a look at the word “art”.
So you see it’s just made up of two sounds in British English. There are some varieties
where they do pronounce the R, but I’m just going to focus on standard RP. If you’re
one of those people watching who wants to soften your accent a little bit, then completely
forget that R there, or R depending on how you pronounce it. And just pronounce it as
one vowel, /ɑː/. Art. Art. Another one is “arm”, “arm”. Careful, not “aRm”,
or “aRm”, “arm”. And careful with how open your mouth is as well with that vowel
sound, it’s not “Arm”. Arm. Arm. My jaw just drops down for that sound. Another
one, and a very common one, “aren’t”, “aren’t”. Now here I hear a lot of students
saying “aRen’t” or “aRen’t”. Aren’t. Aren’t. Let’s have a look at some words
with that sound in media position. Farm. Farm. Calm. Calm. So nothing that that L is completely
silent. Try not to say “caLm”, “calm”. Calm. And also, “alarm”, “alarm”.
Now in final position “far”, “far”. Again, we don’t pronounce that R at the
end. Not “faR” not “faR”. Far. Far. Another one, Car. Car. And the last one. Star.
Star. Now let’s have a look at some sentences. Feel free to listen as many times as you need
to, and then just practise and repeat after me. The cars aren’t far. The cars aren’t
far. The cars aren’t far. The art is so calming. The art is so calming. The art is
so calming. And that’s it, there we have another video. I hope this has helped you.
I am planning to do a series of videos, all about the vowels in English. One by one, dissecting
them, exactly what I’ve done in this video today. So if you’re interested in that,
make sure you subscribe, don’t forget to click the bell as well and I produce videos
every single week for you guys. I hope you have a fantastic week and I will see you
next lesson. Bye bye!