LIVE English Lesson | Pronunciation: Special cases of the /a/ as in cat

Hey. Hey, everyone. Welcome to today's live training. How are you doing? This is our first. Fifth. Not our first, our fifth live training. Live pronunciation training. We've already talked about intonation and rhythm and stress and content words and function words. We also had introduction to pronunciation. We talked about challenging transitions. And today we are going to talk about a lovely sound called the a sound. A as in cat. I'm going to teach you how to pronounce it. And then I'm going to talk about some special cases where that sound changes when it appears before certain sounds in English. But before that, say hi. In the comments, I see that Almay is here. Fareed Carmen is here. Lalit is here. Here. Hello, everyone. I'm super happy to see you here. If you have been to one of my previous live training sessions, then let me know in the comments as well and tell me which one was your favorite. If this is the first live training that you're watching, then you can go to my Facebook page or my YouTube channel and find all the other four trainings. Okay, so. So let's talk about the A as in cat, and special cases with the A as in cat. All right, so first of all, let's talk about exactly what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about the A sound, how to pronounce before the m and n sound, how to pronounce it before ng, because it does change, how to pronounce it when it appears before r. And then we're going to talk about the a sound versus the ah, as in father, and why people tend to confuse it, because there's a really good reason why people tend to confuse it. And I'm going to talk about the pronunciation differences as well. So let's begin with how to pronounce the ah as in cat. The ah sound is an open vowel sound. To make this sound, you drop your jaw, spread your tongue wide on the bottom part of your mouth. The back of the tongue is high, and you release air. This sound tends to get a little nasal sometimes because when you open your mouth in this position, there's usually a small passage that remains open and air comes out through the nose. Now, you don't have to make it nasal. It's not a big deal if you do, but I just want you to be aware of it. And if you do hear that nasality, then know why that happens. For this specific sound, we find it in words like apple, hat, cat, passion, laughed. This is your mouth for the ah sound. As you can see, the if you can see this. The back of the tongue, right? The back of the tongue is high and kind of like stretches all throughout the mouth. A Cat. Happy. Last. Passion. Faster. Accent. Africa. Casual. Casual. All right, good. So now let's practice a few more words. I want to hear you round your lips for the R. Round. Rap. Happy and casual. Now, this is the sound. However, here's something interesting that happens. And by the way, as you can see, it's usually associated with. Represented with the letter A, right? Not every time you see the A in the spelling, it means that it's the as in cat. Not at all. But you. When you hear the sound, a sound, it will usually be represented with the letter A. Okay? The spelling is going to have A in it. So that's a quick tip that you can remember. Now here is something interesting. When the A sound appears before certain sounds, it changes a little bit. Now, this is not something that you're going to see in the dictionary. If you look for the ipa, the International Phonetic Alphabet of a certain word, you will not see it, right? Because these are nuances that occur in specifically American English, and a lot of people are not. Are not even aware of it. So, for example, if we're talking about the ah sound before the M or N, I told you that there is a thing about the ah sound when it comes to nasal sounds or nasal quality. So when you shift from. From the A to M or n, the sound changes. For example, if we take the word man, right? The A as in cat is continuous. Man. Man. Now, if. When. When it doesn't change, this is how it sounds. Man. Man. Man. However, because of the N, it does change a little bit. And then we hear a small sound and then a schwa. Man. So instead of a man, man, we hear man, Man, Man. Tan, right? Not tan. Tan. This is not a mistake. And in some dialects, you will hear a pure A sound. Tan. However, especially in American English, it's softer. It goes into the E sound than the schwa. Tan. Tan. Tan. But it's not an E. Jam. Jam. Jam. Not camp. A. Ca. Cap. Camp. Can you hear the difference? And it does tend to be a bit more nasal before a nasal sound. Camp. Camp. Not camp. Camp. Again, not a mistake, but I think it's actually easier to make this small transition. Camp. Camp. Good. Now, what happens when the A, as in cat, appears before another nasal sound? In this case the ng. The ng is pronounced where the back of the tongue goes up. Ng. That's a nasal sound. The back of the tongue blocks the air Inside the mouth and. And the air comes out through the nose. When the A as in cat appears before ng, it's either still A or it changes to A. Both are fine and it depends on the speaker. So, for example, if we take the word, this word, you can keep the A as in cat, anger, anger. And then if you want to do this shift, it's A. Anger, anger, A, A, anger, anger. Both are fine. Let's look at another one. Slang, slang. A as in cat versus slang. Both are fine. Slang, slang. Another one. Bang, Ba, as in cat is fine. And you can also turn it into the A as in day. Bang, bang. All right, good. Any questions so far? Let's see. All right, I'm going to look at your questions. Hello. Hello. All right, so good. Does this, does this make sense? Does this sound right to you? Let me know in the comments. All right, now the A as in cat before the R. When the as in cat appears before the R, what happens is that the A turns into an E. E, E. Okay. A turns into E. So instead of saying carry, carry, you turn it into Kerry carry. Right. So the A turns into E as in red, Carry, carry. Not a mistake. But you're more likely to hear it as E. Carry, barrel, barrel instead of barrel. Both are fine. But you're more likely to hear it as barrel. And then arrow, arrow. In the dictionary, you'll see it as a arrow, which is also fine. But most people are going to pronounce it with an sound, especially people living in the U.S. arrow, arrow, arrow. Both are fine. Okay, any questions so far? So we pronounced a when the as followed. Yeah. So, Carmen, when the a appears before in G, it could either stay A, but it could also turn into a language. Lang language could also be language. Do whatever is easier for you. If the A is a challenge, this is a good opportunity to simplify your pronunciation and use a that is a little easier. Right. Makes sense. Thank you, Eva. All right, so now I want to talk about the A as in cat versus ah as in father. The as in cat is an open front vowel. The ah as in father is a back open vowel. Ah. The back of the tongue is low. Ah. You can see a lot of space inside my mouth. A. Ah. Now, there is a group of words that's called the ask list, a list of words where in some dialects, even though we might pronounce it or hear it with an a, it's also okay to shift the pronunciation into the ah sound. Ah. Ah. Okay. So for example, the word ask in American English, the The sound here is ah. However, in some dialects in British English, it would be pronounced as ah. Ask, Ask. And even in America if you say ask, that would be totally clear. However, if you take a word that is not inside this ask list, like passion, for example, and pronounce it with passion, it might be a little harder for people to understand because it's not on this list. Now, people don't memorize this list, but it's something that is common. This word has two common pronunciations. A, Ah, Anna, Anna, Ask. Osc. Dance. Dance. Right. But for the word cap, C, A, P. If you alternate the a with a cop, you will get a different word. C, O, P. Right? Cop. So this is why you can only make this shift, this alternation between a and ah in. In a select group of words, pass, you can easily pronounce it as a pass. So again, this is a tip for simplifying pronunciation where if you have a hard time pronouncing the as in cat, it's totally fine and you're still going to be totally clear if pronouncing it as a sound. Laugh, laugh. Now I want you to think of other words where it's. It would be. It would sound right for you to hear it with a sound and with a laugh. Laugh, Pass. Ask. France. France. What else? Dance. Dance. Okay, so let me know and. How to sound more American in a sound. Well, the ascent in American English is a little more closed. Cap, cap. Even the, the neutral one versus cap cap. That is more crisp and light and short in British English, cap. In American English, you drag it a little bit. Cap, cap, cap. Even if it doesn't have mn or ng right after. Right? So that's the main difference. It's a little looser, a little softer. It takes time for the sound to form versus British English where it's like sharp and crisp. Okay, Casual. So casual is not a word on the ask, ask, listen. Because if you were to say casual, casual, this is not a common pronunciation. Ah, casual. Remember that in American English, the ah sound is usually associated with words spelled with o. Coffee, office, honest job. And this is why it's better to do it only on this list, because otherwise you might shift into pronouncing a different word. Okay, thank you. For example, when is before M N, n, g, it's a little different. Not always. But for example, in the word thank you, if we try to pronounce an ah sound instead, thonkyou, it's just a little off and might be more. Might be unclear to pronounce more Of a smile for cat versus father. Yes, absolutely. So the cat sound has more of a smile in it because we pull the lips to the sides. Cat versus father. Cop. Right. Father. The lips are totally relaxed. K, Am or attention here. Ah. Relaxed. Ah. I want you to shift between those two sounds with me. Captain. Cop. Cap. Cop. Cap. Cop. Ask. Osk. Right. This is the same word. We're not changing it. But one has the a as in cat and the other one has the ah. Father. I teach American English for the most part, but I always talk because that's the. The pronunciation that I'm familiar with and I'm using naturally. But I always talk about the difference between dialects. Mango. Great, great example. So we go back to the rule of a as in cat before m and n. And then it's not mango. Mango. I'm sorry, this is an ng. It's not M and an N. Man. You hear it mang. So here you can either keep the as in cat mango or turn it into a mango. Mango. Mang. Mang. It sounds weird when I say it because people don't like associating the s sound with any word that is written with a. But before ng. This is the case. Mango. Mango. Mango. How do the mouth when you pronounce the as in cat. So for those of you who joined a little later, let me show you to make the ah as in cat. The jaw drops. The tongue is flat in the front of the mouth. The back of the tongue is high. And let me show you the right. You can see here. And the mouth is really open. The lips pull to the sides just a bit. Apple. Happy. Laugh. And like I said, in some words there is a slight transition there. Okay, Any other questions? If you have any specific words struggle with that. Have the A as in cat them in the comments. In the meantime, for those of you who don't know, we are in day four of our boot camp. We are running the bootcamp. And if you're in the bootcamp, let me know in the comments. So I know you're here, but the bootcamp is a 14 day fluency journey where we share with you daily training. So every day I go live for 20 minutes and I share with you another insight or tip or strategy and an assignment. And all of these are designed to help you build momentum in your English. So I highly recommend for you to join it. Even if you. Even if you watch just a couple of days, it's still extremely valuable. I don't usually teach this stuff. YouTube videos and it's organized in A way that is designed to get you to take action and to make a change in your English. So I really hope you join hadarshemish.combootcamp and I'm hoping to see you there. Thank you, Amar. Amar just shared the link in on Facebook and if. And he'll share it on YouTube really soon, too. Good. Fadim is asking, can you. He's giving the example of batter and butter. You're introducing us to a new sound here. The new sound is the cup sound for butter. This is the closest sound to a neutral sound, right? B. B. It's not ba botter, but B versus A as in cat. Ba, Batter, butter. Batter, butter. Another question. Does the back of the tongue touch the upper teeth? No, the back of the. Nothing touches the upper teeth. For the. Ah. The back of the tongue is coming close to the soft palate, but it doesn't touch anything. The moment you have contact between the tongue and other organs, and then it's going to shift into the direction of a consonant. A sound that has stopped, partially stopped, or interrupted. We talked about it in training number three a week ago. So if we're thinking of vowels, there's always space there, so there isn't real contact between the articulation organs. If there is, it becomes a consonant. Graduate. Graduate. Yeah, that's a great example. Simple. Graduate has the A as in cat. That's the pure pronunciation of the sound. Gra. Graduate. Yay. We have a lot of you in the boot camp. This is exciting. Yay. Natalia. Yes. Follow up with you on boot camp. Yeah, Mikal, please do. Oh, a lot of boot campers here. I'm excited for today's training. By the way. You're going to get to design your workspace. Just so, you know, like, fun homework. I'm attending to be accepted, but, Mara, great. If you signed up, you should be getting an email and with directions on how to join right away. The sound I have a problem with. Yeah, it's the cup sound. I have a video about the cap, cup, cop. Vowel sound or challenging vowel pairs. So you can find it on my YouTube channel. And I explain. Explain it thoroughly in the boot camp. But technically speaking, the sound is very similar to any neutral vowel sound, like a vowel sound, you know, that exists in many languages, like, you know, like Russian and Spanish and French, Italian. So you want to take that into consideration. So you actually already have it. Okay. All right, let me see. Okay, so Vasily is asking, can you talk about the word cancer? Cancer is also the A as in cat, but before an N sound. So it turns into an. Can you hear the difference? Cancer. Cancer. And then also the word hotel doesn't have the A as in cat, but it does have the long o. And I'm assuming that what you're doing is maybe opening up to hotel or hotel instead of long o as in go and putting the stress on the second syllable. Hotel. Hotel. The word has the e sound in the schwab. Yeah, yeah, Sayed. I do have a bunch of videos in a podcast episode about the schwa that is very long because we're about to wrap up and the schwa is like a big, big sound. But I do have a lot of resources teaching the schwa. I highly recommend that you check it out because it's really the secret to pronunciation. And technically speaking, it appears in almost every other word in English that has two syllables and more. And it's a very neutral sound. And it sounds something like this. Okay, good. Okay. I have a problem with contraction sound. I have a video, very long video, and a PDF and audio to practice for free. It's on my YouTube channel, on my website. You can find it just right. Accent, sway, contractions or hadar contractions. Ladder and mate. Jean is asking. Ladder has the as in cat. Absolutely. Ladder. Ladder. Like climb the ladder or the ladder, you know, I had two ideas. The first was this. The second was that the ladder is what I decided to follow up with. The second of the two or the last one of the two. L, A, T, T, E, R, ladder and also L A, D, D, E, R. They sound exactly the same. A as in cat and a flap. T. And then the word mate does not have the A as in cat because of the e at the end, the silent E. That's a pretty good indication that the a sound should be pronounced with. With a. A as in day, A as in date. Abstracted. What about the word hobby? Hobby is the ah as in father, not an o sound. Ah. Ah, the cousin of the ah sound, the oz. And father has the same as daughter. That's true in some dialects. You will hear it more rounded. Daughter. Daughter, like East Coast British, but you can totally pronounce it with the oz and father. This is how I pronounce it. Daughter cannot be pronounced with ah. Dad. Er, okay. Yeah. So let's talk about. I'm going to do a quick review of the cap, cup and cop, and then we'll wrap up and I'll invite you again to the bootcamp. So as in cat. That's what we talked about today. The as in cup is a neutral vowel sound. Not a neutral, but it's like a stressed schwa. It's like a neutral ah sound that exists in a lot of languages. And then we have ah, we pull the tongue back. This is an open vowel sound. So the front ah is really open. The back ah is really open. The middle is centered A ah. Cap, cup, cop, hat, hut, hot. Okay, so again, if you want to go a little deeper, go to check out my video about the cap, cup, cop. You'll find a lot of examples there. Good. So to wrap up, I really want to invite you one to watch the rest of the live trainings. If you want to get a pronunciation boost and join the boot camp. If you want a fluency boost, build your habits, change your mindset. We're about to start talking about we're still talking about habits and foundation, but we will talk about mindset, and that is probably going to be one of the most meaningful parts of the bootcamp and of your English training in general, because I think this work is so incredibly important. So we're going to talk about that. And that's it. We are in day four. We still have 10 more days to go, so you're not missing out on anything. The content is going to stay up until the end of the month, so I hope to see you there. Hadar shemesh.com forward/boot camp. Thank you everyone for being here, for asking all these great, great questions. If you have more questions, then I'm inviting you again. Join the bootcamp. We're going to have Q and A sessions where I'll be answering questions, pronunciation as well. Take care, my friends. Have a good day and I'll see you soon.