How to say FORWARD and BACKWARD | American English

Hi, it's Hadar. And this is the accent's way, your way to finding clarity, confidence and freedom in English. Ronnie asked me to explain how to pronounce the words forward and backward. Forward and backward. Now, both words end the same. Listen. Word. Word. Just like the word. Word. Let's say a few words about it. Now, although it's spelled with W, A R D, W, A R, D pronounced as ward, as in the neurological ward. But here it's reduced. So you don't pronounce the or as in for. You pronounce it as a schwa. Word. Word. Let's start with a W sound round your lips. W. And then you bring the tongue up as you round your lips for the R. Were. There is nothing between the W and the R Were. Just like the word were, as in we were. As your tongue is up there, you push it to touch the upper palate, to close it with a D sound. Word. Word. Now that's the ending. Let's talk about the beginning in the word forward. The beginning is the word for. Just like the number four. Four. You bring the bottom lip to touch the teeth for the F. Release air, drop your jaw for the vowel. And then you close your jaw a little bit and bring the tongue up for the R for. Now listen, you gotta open your mouth and keep the tongue down as you pronounce the word for. Otherwise it's gonna sound like fur. Fur. Word. It's too tight, too closed for. Also, this is the primary stress of the word. So take your time. And it's a little higher in pitch. Forward. Forward. Now let's say it a few times. Forward. Forward. What's the difficult part about it? Forward. Where do you struggle? I guess it's where the transition between the R, W and R again. Or were. Or were. All right. This transition is every non native speaker's dream. I know. Just put in a th there and it's a big party. Forward. I'm kidding. It's not a party. It's a nightmare. So to pronounce this transition, you bring the tongue up for the R R in four. Then you keep the lips rounded, close your lips a little bit more for the W, you relax it, and then you bring the tongue up again for the R. Were. Forward. Now, the word backward is a little easier because you have the word back at the beginning. It's a B sound. Then the as in cat ba. And then you bring the tongue up in the back for the K sound. Back, backward. For the A sound. Pull your lips a little bit to the side so it doesn't come out as backwards. And drop your jaw a lot. Ba. Backward, forward. I'm moving forward and backward. Let's look backward, forward, backward. That's it. All right. I hope you enjoyed this video. Please share this video with your friends if you liked it and come on over to my website to check it out and get more great content every single week. Have a great week, and I'll see you next week in the next video. Bye.