A diphthong is two vowel sounds together. Let’s study this diphthong with illustrations and up close, slow motion speech.
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Video Transcript:
In this American English pronunciation video we’re going to learn how to pronounce the AI as in buy diphthong.
Diphthongs are a combination of two sounds so they have a starting position and an ending position. In the first position the jaw is more dropped than in the second position. The back of the tongue stretches up a little bit as the mouth moves into the second position, the jaw drops less as the front part of the tongue arches up towards the roof of the mouth for both the beginning and the end of this diphthong the tongue tip touches the back of the bottom front teeth. Let’s watch up close and in slow motion where you can really see the front part of the tongue arching up. The jaw drops and the front part of the tongue stays down with the tip touching the back of the bottom front teeth. Immediately, the tongue moves into the second position the top front arching up towards the roof of the mouth. As the tongue arches up there’s less jaw drop here’s the word high. Jaw drops with the front of the tongue down then the jaw lifts as the front of the tongue arches towards the roof of the mouth. In a stressed syllable the I diphthong curves up then down. High, I. In an unstressed syllable it’s lower and flatter and pitch as well as quicker and quieter. I, I. The diphthong is unstressed in the word idea. I. let’s take a look at this word.
The jaw drops but just a little bit less than it would in a stressed syllable. Then the tongue arches up towards the roof of the mouth before the tip goes to the roof of the mouth for the D.
The Ai diphthong stressed. Hi, I.
The I diphthong unstressed. Idea
Ai
Example words repeat with me
exercise
wine
bright
guy
allies
sky
Hear the difference immediately.
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