#81: comparing long o and ow sound
These two-sound vowels both end in a w sound , and both can be spelled ow .
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Transcript
Hi everyone, and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English Pronunciation Podcast. My name is Mandy, and this is our 81st episode.
Today I'm going to compare two vowels that don't get a lot of attention when it comes to English pronunciation: the long o sound and the ow sound . The long o sound is pronounced ( long o ), as in the word home . Long vowels sound like their letter name, so, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, it should not be a surprise that the long o sounds like ( long o ). The ow sound is pronounced as ( ow sound ), as in the word cow . So today we're practicing ( long o ) and ( ow sound ). The long o and ow sound have two major things in common.
They both are two-sound vowels that end in a brief w sound They can both be spelled ow
Let's look first at their pronunciation. The ow sound begins with the tongue very low in the mouth. The bottom teeth can be felt alongside the tongue. The beginning of the ow sound is a lot like the short o sound ( short o ). I talked about the short o sound in episode 78. So, from the ( short o ) sound, the ow sound moves into the w sound . The body of the tongue rises so that it is near the back of the hard palate. Remember, the hard palate is the bony, top area inside the mouth. The lips also need to close into a small circle for the w sound . If we put the short o sound and the w sound together, we get the ow sound ( ow sound , ow sound ). You can always think of the ow sound as the short o sound plus the w sound ( ow sound ).
The long o begins with the body of the tongue higher, and more neutral in the mouth.
The beginning of the long o sound is more similar to a short u sound ( short u ). From there, the tongue moves into the w sound , just like it did for the ow sound . The body of the tongue rises and the lips go into a small circle. I get the sound ( long o , long o ). The most frequent problem I hear with the long o sound is not transitioning fully into the w sound . Think about the contractions don't and won't . Both of those contractions should be pronounced with a long o sound: don't , won't . I often hear my students say *don't and *won't , with a sound closer to a short o sound. Practice on your own for a bit. Do you say:
I don't think so. or
I *don't think so. The w sound of the long o is less obvious than it is for the ow sound , but it still is quite necessary, and leaving it off can cause miscommunication.
Now let's look at the other similarity between the long o sound and the ow sound : they can both be spelled with the letters ow . The ow sound is better known for this spelling, as in the words cow and now . I think many people don't trust that they are hearing a different pronunciation in words like grown , g-r-o-w-n, and known , k-n-o-w-n. Both of those words are spelled ow , and pronounced with a long o sound.
I'm going to say ten words, and all of them are spelled ow . The first five words are pronounced with the ow sound , and the last five are pronounced with the long o sound. Listen carefully, and repeat after me.
ow sound cow town down brown crowd
long o slow own bowl grown known
Both the long o and ow sound have other spellings as well.
I'm not going to get into them here, but I will link to the new free lessons for both of these sounds from this episode's transcripts. You can find the transcript for this episode, as well as all of our transcripts, by going to www.pronuncian.com/podcast.
All the new vowel sound lessons include both pronunciation and spellings for each sound.
You can also go to the Sounds tab and click lessons to see all the new lessons.
If you are a Pronuncian subscriber, you also have access to the brand new ow spelling quiz.
Just go to the lesson for either of these sounds, and the quiz is linked from the bottom of the page. The quizzes help you understand the sound better by testing if you can hear the sound correctly. A lot of pronunciation practice is simply being aware of the way things sound.
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That's all for today. Thanks for listening everyone.
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