006 A as in CAT
2: The 7 Short Simple Vowels or Monophthongs
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5m 17s
For the A vowel, your lips are neutral, released and relaxed but the front of your tongue is slightly raised. The danger with this vowel is that here in the U.K. it can become dulled or blunted - so that A in “cat” sounds closer to “U” in “cut”. Other accents - for example the German accent - can push this sound towards “E” as in “get”. So “cat” might sound like “ket”.
“A” is a sound that CAN be safely lengthened - and this can create quite an effective emphasis as in the phrase “the seven ages of MAN”, for example.
When the A sound is correct, it is often described as sounding nice and “bright”. Keep this idea of a bright sound as we work through the exercises.
Up Next in 2: The 7 Short Simple Vowels or Monophthongs
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007 I as in KIT
The I sound again has neutral, relaxed lips but this time the front of your tongue is raised a bit further - to just under the fully raised position for the long EE sound. Try moving from the high EE position to the slightly lower I position:
EE/I EE/I EE/I
Can you feel that slight but vital ...
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008 E as in GET
The E vowel sound is produced with neutral, relaxed lips but with the front of your tongue half raised. Compare this tongue position to the fully raised position for EE. Try: EE/E EE/E EE/E
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009 OO as in BOOK
The oo vowel is a lip vowel and so the lips should be in a rounded position but not as closely rounded as the whistling OO lip position and the back of the tongue is raised. When I first started my training I had a problem with this sound - because my lips were too relaxed, when I tried to say “L...
