Hadar Shemesh breaks down the vowel difference between lunch and launch, showing where your tongue and jaw go for each word. The key: lunch has a short u sound, launch has a broader aw sound.
Welcome to the Influency Podcast. I'm Hadar and this is how to Pronounce Friday, where we take a confusing word or word pair. We learn how to pronounce it and how to use it with confidence. Let's get started.
Ron asked me to talk about the important difference between lunch and launch. Lunch, as in let's have lunch one day and launch as in I'm launching my product today. Okay. So the difference is in the middle vowel. Okay. Lunch and lunch. The word lunch has a neutral sound that exists in many different languages. Lunch. So you can also call it a stress. Chua. It's a cup sound. L. Lunge. So the tongue is in the middle, the mouth is relaxed. Lunge. Pretty simple. The word launch has the ah as in father or the as in daughter. Either one is great. But just make sure that you position the sound in the back part of your mouth and pull the tongue back a bit.
Launch. Launch.
Okay. So you can drop your jaw round the lips just a bit or relax your lips completely.
Launch.
But it has to have that dark quality in it. Otherwise it's going to have a neutral quality, central quality lunch. And then it's kind of flat sounding like the word lunch.
Launch.
Notice it is not lounge. Although there is a u here. It's not a diphthong. It's not ow loud. Because then it's going to sound like lounge. Let's chill in the lounge. Lounge. We're launching our product today and we're planning a nice lunch launch. Lunch. Okay.
That was your how to Pronounce Friday episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you like the podcast, then consider subscribing to the podcast. And if you feel really crazy, you can even rate and review the podcast. And you can find me at Hadar Accentsway on Instagram, where you can DM me and ask for all the crazy, fancy, confusing words that you'd like to know how to pronounce. Have a beautiful day and I'll see you next time.
