Good. We want to talk today about vowels. Who knows what a vowel is?
I see a hand. What's a vowel?
Okay, we got some examples of vowels.
That's a good start.
Does anybody know what makes a vowel?
What's significant about a vowel?
Good. We're hearing a little bit of introduction to linguistics that are somewhere?
Great. Okay, we're going to try something.
Because we want to not only talk about theory, but also practice it a little bit.
So try pronouncing these sounds, and the words are there so you can get it.
And the vowels are named next to them.
So try it sort of one after another, and feel what's going on in your mouth.
Beat, bit, bet, bat, but.
Go ahead, everybody. We don't have to do it together.
Anybody notice anything? Let's do it all together once.
Beat, bit, bet, bat, but.
What's happening?
You notice anything? What's going on in there when you move from one to the next?
Yeah. The tongue is changing.
The position of the tongue is changing.
Good. Anybody else notice something? Yeah.
Right. Right.
Each vowel is slightly more open than the one before it. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah. That's about right.
Almost. Until the last one.
Good. Let's look at the chart there. Oh, we just answered that question.
So let's look at the chart there.
We talked about this not nearly enough last week, so we're going to see if we can talk about it a little bit more.
What's going on in your mouth when we're producing these vowels?
Here's the head chart. You have sort of the vocabulary to refer to.
So we heard that the mouth is opening a little bit more. We heard that the position of the tongue is moving.
Maybe we can talk more about that more specifically.
Beat, bat. Yes.
And beat, it's more front. And then bat, it's somewhat more back.
Well, we talked about how the mouth is more closed in the beginning, in the i and more open in the a.
So we describe vowels using a chart that really is supposed to represent your mouth.
The pointy bit would be sort of representative of where the nose is, so the face.
So we describe vowels as either front, central, or back, and as high, mid, or low.
So let's think about those vowels again we just talked about.
E and a. Where do you think the e is?
On this chart, yes.
High front, very good. That's right. What about the a?
Yeah? Back mid, back low.
Somebody have a different idea? You're not that far off. Yeah?
Mid-central? No.
That would be the a, which we had after the a. But we'll come back to that one.
Good. The a is actually low front, but you can see, although it's described front,
that it is further back than the high front, e.
Okay. Let's look at this a little more specifically.
Here's sort of the official chart of all the sounds of standard American English.
We're going to go through each one individually, but here I just wanted to show you.
This is the chart as you will see it when it's complete first.
And there's a couple of distinctions that go beyond the high front, low back continuum.
Basically, there's a couple of things such as the distinction between a tense vowel.
These are the ones on the outside and the lax vowel, which are in the darker gray area.
There's also the distinction between round and not rounded vowels.
And we'll talk about those when we get to them. We're going to save those for a little bit.
But the tension and the lack, the tense and the lax vowels, well,
that basically describes exactly what you think it does.
It has to do with the muscles in your face.
So in e, you can actually feel the tension in your face creating the e sound.
Whereas in a, it's not there. Try it again.
E, a. Did you feel it?
You feel the muscles getting tight in your face, maybe even in your neck.
Whereas in the a, you just open your mouth and let it out, right?
Not so much pressure going on there, you might say.
Okay, let's talk about the vowels sort of individually.
We started with the e, so we're going to look at it again, basically.
This is sort of the sequence in which one usually describes the vowels.
So I've taken out the tense, lax distinction because we don't need it for our purposes right now.
But there's the e high front. You will come across it in beach, in leaf, in pretty.
Who here has an e in his or her name?
Yeah, what's your name? Inga.
Hmm, I think we're going to find it's sort of e, but there's a little bit of subtlety there.
That's not quite exactly the same. Anybody have an e like that really tense e?
Yeah, Anahita has it more. Good. Excellent.
Another one? Anybody? No more e, yeah?
Yeah, good. Well done.
Good. So we've got that e sound. Good.
The next one, which is sort of close to it, I think this one is closer to what you find in Inga.
This is a shorter sound. You have it in win or lip.
Or if you remember from last week, English, it's not an e sound.
It's shorter and it's less tense.
Finger. I'm sure we can come up with another one who's got an e in their name.
Christopher, good one. Yeah, excellent.
So that e, can you hear the difference now between the e and the e?
I'm sort of exaggerating the length of the e there.
Also the tension, you can feel it in your face again.
That's the distinction between the tense and the lax vowels.
Good. Questions?
Slow me down at any time if I'm moving too fast.
Okay, the next front vowel would be,
now this is the first time you're looking at something you're thinking,
that doesn't look like an English letter.
This one is e, e.
It sounds pretty neutral. Not exactly neutral though.
It's still produced closer to the front of your mouth, even though it's mid,
so it doesn't sound so different.
E, you find in bend, in cell, in head, or never, or anybody's name here.
And some sounds end up being somewhere in between the vowels that we're talking about.
So we have here, e as in never, not Sarah, would you say Sarah?
Yeah, it's somewhere in between the e and the a.
Okay, good. So there's the a.
There's another one, you've probably seen that symbol before,
but didn't really know what it meant, and possibly,
or certainly didn't know that it's actually part of IPA.
A as in hand, in man, in laugh, in, I don't know,
any names here have an a in them?
My name has an a in it, Susanna.
That sort of doesn't sound exactly pure,
because it changes as soon as you put it in context.
We'll talk about that a little bit more later, too.
Good. Questions so far?
Okay.
The central vowels are the key ones for lots of reasons.
You will see there's two of them here.
It's sort of debatable about how distinct from one another they are.
But you will certainly find this one that looks like
a little carrot in stressed syllables that have the a sound
as in wonder or enough in the second syllable
or in bungee jumping.
There we go. We only had two of them.
There's your strong, stressed schwa is what it's called,
the little carrot one that looks like the upside down v.
The upside down e, which is next to it,
sounds almost identical,
except that it occurs only in unstressed syllables.
You're probably thinking, what on earth is that?
We haven't had a chance to talk about stress yet.
We're trying to get the vowels in first.
But you'll hear a in longer words, therefore,
or in words that don't get so much stress,
as in, for example, in delicious first syllable.
Wonderful last syllable.
Enough, therefore, in the first syllable again.
The uh in the enough in the second syllable,
the strong one in the weak one
or the reduced one in the first syllable, enough.
Listen carefully. They sound almost exactly the same.
Distinction really is only the stress on the syllable.
Good.
Woman is another one there in the second syllable, the woman.
So that is the schwa and the stressed schwa.
That one takes place right in the middle of your mouth, basically.
That's why it's the most neutral one,
and the one you come across again and again and again,
certainly the unstressed one for lots of reasons.
When we start talking about rhythm in a couple weeks,
you'll see why.
Okay.
There's one last vowel that gets mentioned not so often,
and this one also takes, occurs really in unstressed syllables.
That one sounds a lot like the eh,
except that it's a little shorter.
Eh.
And I don't have any good examples of it here with me,
except for example in winning.
Not the first syllable, but the second one.
You can hear how the ing and the winning
is a little bit shorter than the eh and the win.
Again, it occurs in unstressed syllables.
It's called a barred eye.
Don't need to worry about that.
And it's not really until we talk more about rhythm
that we'll be practicing that sound a little more.
So don't worry about it too much yet.
Any questions?
No.
Okay.
We're going to try a little practice exercise,
and let's see how you do.
The two sounds that are most often mixed up
but are important for meaning distinctions,
especially in American English,
are these two, the eh and the ah.
Did you hear the difference just now?
Eh, ah.
Okay.
Now let's see if you can tell me which one it is when I say,
you can just say first or second based on which,
the order you see them in.
Blend.
You heard the second.
Good.
So we would have blend, gland.
How about hem?
Did you hear the first or the second there?
Yeah?
The first.
Yeah, that was hem.
Hem, hem.
Okay.
When you hear them next to each other, it gets easier.
When you hear them in context, so in longer sentences,
it gets more complicated.
We'll practice that a little bit more later.
How about this one?
Rack.
Yeah.
You heard the second.
Everybody else?
Yeah.
Good.
Well done.
Okay.
And dad?
Yeah.
You heard the first one.
You heard the second one.
We'll try it again.
Dad.
Now you'd say the second one.
Now you've changed your mind.
Yep.
That was the second one.
Dad.
Dead dad.
Good.
Okay.
Let's try a couple more.
Whoops.
It missed.
It shifted.
Beg.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Beg.
Bag.
Good.
Oh, man.
Tanned.
Yeah.
Second one.
I thought I looked at the slide before I started.
Good.
Sad.
Yeah.
The second one.
Good.
Okay.
Head.
I hear this mistake all the time.
Yes.
Head was the first one.
Head.
Had.
Bend.
Ben.
Yes.
Ben.
That was longer.
You can hear it more clearly there.