American English Pronunciation Master Class

The importance of long vowels in American English lies in their ability to convey meaning, enhance clarity, and contribute to effective communication. Long vowels play a crucial role in differentiating words, distinguishing between similar-sounding terms, and conveying the intended message with precision. Mastery of long vowels is essential for native and non-native speakers alike, as it impacts overall pronunciation and the perceived fluency of spoken English.

My students master the intricacies of long vowels in American English, and they experience a boost in confidence. The ability to articulate long vowels accurately fosters a sense of assurance in one's speaking abilities, empowering individuals to communicate more assertively and make a lasting impact in both personal and professional contexts.

The Long vowel sound explanation is the most simple explanation that you will ever hear. It’s so easy that even a 5 year old child can understand it, and believe me given the right song and dance my very young students always learned to perfectly pronounce the long vowel sounds in no time.

So if my explanation of the long vowels is super simple and you think “I already know this”, then what I’m going to ask you to do is, even if you think you know this information”  do not skip this video, as a matter of fact, do not skip any video in this course.

So why dedicate a series of videos on mastering long vowels sounds if they are “so easy to understand”? Well, because once these long vowels sounds are placed inside the words, then it becomes a more difficult skill to master…especially if you don’t have someone to guide you in understanding how to properly pronounce the vowels in American English, but with my help….gonna be easy.

Listen to how simple the concept of the long vowels is: Long vowels are vowels that make the same sound as the actual letter name.

Easy, right?

Don’t worry I’ll further explain, but for now let me ask you the following question.

What are the vowels?

You do know, you don’t know, not a problem……these are the vowels.

A, E, I, O U and sometimes Y

So that part is easy, 5 letters of the alphabet and sometimes y…easy…….

I remember learning in school at a very early age the following expression concerning the long vowels….we were asked to repeat….“Long vowels say their names.”

So repeat after me ….

”long vowels say their names”

A.   E.   I.  O.  U

So now let’s practice the long vowel sounds

Watch my mouth and imitate the mouth movement. Very important.

Long Vowels

How do you say this letter

A. Ayeeeeeeeeee

How do you say this letter

E. eeeeeeeeee

How do you say this letter

I. Ah-eeeeeeeeee

How do you say this letter

O.  ooooouuuuuuu

How do you say this letter

U. yyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuu

Like I said….easy right? There is more explanation coming your way, by the end of this module you will have a solid grasp on the long vowel sounds, this was only a brief introduction on the importance of the long vowel sounds…..in the next video we are going to do some hardcore pronunciation exercises. See you in the next video.

Remember to engage all of our mouth muscles. Big open movement, and listen very carefully to the sounds I make. Remember, we are learning American pronunciation.

How do you say this letter

E. Eeeeeeeeee

This is exactly how you must pronounce this sound when saying long vowel E words.

The E sound, when pronounced correctly should resonate your the upper part fo your head.

The side of your tongue should touch the sides of your mouth.

The tip of your tongue should be  placed towards the front of the mouth

and can gently rest behind the lower teeth.

And you should have a slight smile on your face when pronouncing this letter. The Long vowel E should naturally pull the sides of your lips towards your ears.

The long vowel E is found in the word SEE, if you remove the S you are left with the long vowel E sound.

Remember, if this concept of vowels is easy for you and you think you know it, I suggest you take a long breath and finish this module, you need mastery of the long vowel sounds before you continue any other exercise.

The vowels are one of the first language skills we are taught at an early age in school. Native speakers have no problem distinguishing long vs short vowels. After this course, you too will be able to distinguish the difference. Mastery is key.

There are 8 ways to spell the Long E vowel:

Patterns E, E-E (E ,consonant, silent E), EE, EA, and Y are the 5 most common spellings. 


But, you can also spell long E with ei, ie, and ey, but these are less common.

e says /ē/ like equal.

e-e says /ē/ like scene., 

e followed by a  consonant followed by a  silent e. 

the e at the end of this word is silent and when I say “consonant” it means any letter other than a vowel, 

rstlnmjkpqbl etc….so any easy way to remember the consonant letters is to think of it this way…..any letter that is not a vowel is consonant 

So, e-e says /ē/ like scene.


ee says /ē/ like bee.



ea says /ē/ like read.



y says /ē/ like baby.



ei says /ē/ like receipt. (The p in this word is silent)



ie says /ē/ like cookie. 



ey says /ē/ like turkey.

Let’s continue to practice the sound with this simple word.

Teach, teach , teach

The side of the tongue touches the sides of the mouth, tongue placed lightly behind the lower teeth, smile, resonate the mid part of your head. And pull the sides of the lips back like a smile.

EEEEEEEEEEEEE

Resonate means make it vibrate. This sensation may feel strange at first, but American pronunciation engages muscles in the head and jaw that may be dormant in your native language.

So in the next video there will be a long list of words that contain the long E sound.  But before we meet there, I want to give you a study tip while studying with this course, it’s fine if you just practice one lesson per day. Yesterday you should have watched and practiced the long vowel A lesson, and warms up with the attached audio files corresponding to the long vowel A.

And today you should only focus on the long vowel E,

tomorrow you begin your pronunciation practice with the audio attached to the long vowel E and then begin the long Vowel I and so on.

When you reach the end of this module then you can go back and review from the very first video. So that’s study tip #1.

Study tip #2…..reviewing is one of the most important study habits one can adopt, so use the audio files before every session to review and practice.

Listen closely, and repeat after after me. For a more advanced study method you should only listen and repeat and refrain from reading the text on the screen. Whatever feels comfortable. Get ready to smile a lot and get ready to engage these muscles. No pain, no gain. Here we go:

equal he be she we me people being, maybe, idea area we’ll Peter secret legal region prefix rebuild evil female museum Egypt Leo fever meter European frequent theory reaction Jesus the name above all names. nucleus resource previous meow decrease

scene eve theme these evening complete Pete Chinese gene here Steve extreme athlete concrete sphere supreme centipede trapeze stampede

bee sea three need keep feet meet teeth speed agree coffee wheel Indeed seen feel tree street queen steel between green fifteen deep speech sleep sheet seem creek week cheese screen knee breeze asleep cheeks screech Reebok sheep redeem

read, each, eat, really, sea, team, deal, easy, meat, seat, mean, leave, real, beach, dream, stream, easy, beat, reach, tea, heat, season, clean, meal, least, leader, wheat, teacher, please, peace, reason, speak, weak, east, neat, leak, cream, breathe, seal, baby, many, very, only, any, every, really, family, city, body, story, fifty, candy, crazy, puppy, healthy, surely, Tommy, century, teddy, thirty, country, crazy, early, daily, ready, rocky, парру, lucky, silly, marry, memory, sunny, colony, pony, copy, county, noisy, receipt, either, ceiling, leisure, neither, caffeine, receive, deceit, protein, Keith, cookie, species, shield, belief, grief, prairie, relief, priest, brief, calories, turkey, money, valley, key,  journey, honey, hockey, donkey, monkey, jersey, chimney, alley, barley, pronunciation.

Wow, my mouth is tired. You should now have a very good understanding of the Long Vowel A from the previous lesson and the long vowel E from this incredible exercise. Take some rest and when your ready see you in the next lesson where we learn all about the long vowel I.

Long Vowel I

Remember to engage all of our mouth muscles. Big open movement, and listen very carefully to the sounds I make. Remember, we are learning American pronunciation.

How do you say this letter

I. Ah eeeeeeeee

Long i says /ī/ like ice.

__________________________

Look for the patterns in the spelling of words that represent the Long vowel I. And remember “Long vowels say their names.”

__________________________

i like in the word lion.

i-e like in the word bike. I consonant e

igh like in the word light.

y like in the word fly.

y_e like in the word type.


(Y consonant e….the letter P is the consonant in this word)

ie like in the word pie.

___________________________

Before we begin: I wanted to bring an important concept to your attention. In American English when the T sound is surrounded by two vowel sounds, native speakers will reduce the T sound. The reduced sound is equal to a fast, light D sound, such as in the words water, butter, better, ability, marketing. So pay close attention not to pronounce the T like a foreign speaker. Who reviewing the previous videos and all videos that follow I want you to pay special attention the this reduced T sound.

And the T will also get reduced when it is followed by a schwa sound and the letter “N”, this new sound is what we call a glottal T, such as in the words Cotton, Forgotten, important, gluten but let’s save that for a later module. We will explore this T reduction in future videos and I will explain it in greater detail.

Next video…..Let’s get to it:

Long Vowel O.

Remember to engage all of our mouth muscles. Big open movement, and listen very carefully to the sounds I make. Remember, we are learning American pronunciation.

How do you say this letter

O. Ooooo uuuuu

Long o says /ō/  like home.

Remember Long vowels say their name! AEIOU

There are 5 ways to spell Long O:

o like no.


o-e like home. O consonant E, m is the consonant, the E is silent

H - O - m is the consonant - E is silent


oa like boat.


ow like bow.


oe like toe.



This long vowel O is very important and must be pronounce perfectly.  Practice and patience with all of this long vowel sounds.  See you in the next video for Long Vowel O practice.

Long Vowel O

We will now practice perfect pronunciation. Engage all those muscles and make the sound big and open,

We will start out with single syllable words.

No, so, go, oh, told, both, cold, don’t, won’t, old, most, hold, gold, colt, post, home, those, whole, close, stone, nose, hole, boat, road, coat, toad, coast, coal, throat, coach, oak, goat, load, soap, goal, float, oat, bow, know, own, show, grow, known, snow, low, slow, shown, throw, blow, flow, bowl, crow,

Here is an added bonus, I will now pronounce these words correctly and then incorrectly side by side. You will now hear the difference between an open long vowel sound in American English and a closed and relaxed short sound commonly found in many languages..

Here is the incorrect vs correct pronunciation, listen closely.

No, so, go, oh, told, both, cold, don’t, won’t, old, most, hold, gold, colt, post, home, those, whole, close, stone, nose, hole,

Rewind this video and listen to the correct pronunciation. You should be able to spot the right way versus the wrong way. ok, good.

So far we have practiced A, E, I, O

Multi-syllable long vowel O words. Open and wide, engage those muscles, avoid rapid short sounds. This is American English pronunciation.

envelope, telephone, alone, expose, telescope, remote, compose, backbone, explode, propose, suppose, antelope, microscope, toaster, railroad, approach, coastal, charcoal, cocoa, moaned, oatmeal, raincoat, roadside, roasted, steamboat, unload, afloat, overload, window, below, follow, yellow, tomorrow, lower, narrow, shadow, fellow, owner, meadow, shallow, arrow, swallow, pillow

So by now your mouth should be extremely tired, I know mine is. The reason it’s tired is because we are purposely exaggerating the sound. The more you do this the easier and less tired your mouth will feel. Remember take a break for today and tomorrow we will explore the long vowel U sound, see you in the next video.

R sound. In this module we will explore the R sound when it is found: 1. At the beginning of words 2. At the end of the words 3. In the middle of the words

This section is gonna be so much fun, the R is one of my favorite sounds to teach. Almost every language has a unique way of pronouncing this sound. The RRRR sound.

In American English the R is produced by gently curling the tip of the tongue towards the top part of our pallet or roof of the mouth.

The tip is suspended, in other words the tip of the tongue does not touch the top part of the mouth, it just curls and points towards the top of the mouth.

The tongue takes the shape of a spoon. And the sound of the R should come from the back of your throat.

I‘ll show you the mouth, lip and tongue movement and placement. This is just a guide to help you understand how to make this sound, and as you become proficient in your American English pronunciation these movements will become second nature, they will become automatic. You won’t have to go through all of these theatrics in the future. But for now just go with the flow and give it your best, no half stepping….ok?

Here we go:

Step 1: Flat tongue

Step 2: curl the tongue

Step 3: close your jaw slightly, bring the teeth close together, but they should not touch

Step 4: lips are in a relaxed and neutral position

Step 5: Keep the tongue curled and pointed upwards while making the sound.

Step 6: produce the sound from the back of your throat.

Step 7: Hold the sound for 4 seconds RRRRRRRRRRR

let’s try it again

Here we go:

Step 1: Flat tongue

Step 2: curl the tongue

Step 3: close your jaw slightly, bring the teeth close together, but they should not touch

Step 4: lips are in a relaxed and neutral position

Step 5: Keep the tongue curled and pointed upwards while making the sound.

Step 6: produce the sound from the back of your throat.

Step 7: Hold the sound for 4 seconds RRRRRRRRRRR

Many of my students tell me they benefit most when I imitate incorrect pronunciation. It gives them a reference between incorrect and correct. So, i’m going to do it the wrong way and the correct way back to back, listen closely to the difference.

And if the incorrect pronunciation sounds like you, well, the you’re doing it the wrong way.

The good news is, that with practice and these videos you will quickly start making the correct pronunciation. Here goes…..

I can further explain the tongue shape by placing a spoon next to my mouth, this is what your tongue should look like when making the R sound.

Using our practice sentence we go in depth with some new sounds, tips and tricks to gt you ready for the rest of the course. In this lesson I explain every sound found in this sentence in great detail. I introduce the "TH", G, Stop T, R at the beginning of a word. Consider this lesson a bonus lesson.

Q: What will you achieve by practicing and memorizing this story for the next 7 days?

A: Everything you have learned prior to this module is included in this one story. And by focusing on this one story you will reinforce the information given to you in all of the previous lessons.

You will begin to understand the "secrets" native speakers use to sound fast and fluent.