A diphthong combines two vowel sounds, necessitating movement between a start and end position. Master it through illustrated examples and close-up, slow-motion speech.
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Video Transcript:
In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to learn how to pronounce the OW as in NOW diphthong.
Diphthongs are a combination of two sounds, so they have a starting position and an ending position.
To start this sound, drop the jaw. The first sound is similar to the AA as in BAT vowel. The tongue is wide and flat, the back stretches up a little bit. The tongue tip touches the back of the bottom front teeth. The upper lip might lift a little, or it will be relaxed. To transition into the second position, the lips round and the jaw drops less.
The back of the tongue stretches up more. This second position is considered the same as the UH as in PUSH vowel. But when it’s a part of a diphthong, the lips round more than when it occurs as a pure vowel. Let’s see this sound up close and in slow motion. Jaw drops. Here, the upper lip pulls a little bit. The tongue lifts in the back. Now the lips come in and round as the jaw comes up.
The word ‘wound’. The lips start in a tight circle for the W, but then open out for the first position of the diphthong before rounding again for the second position of the diphthong.
In a stressed syllable, the OW diphthong curves up then down. Wound, OW. In an unstressed syllable, it’s lower and flatter in pitch, as well as quieter and quicker, ow, ow. The diphthong is unstressed in the word ‘shutdown’, ow.
Let’s take a look at this word. Jaw drops, but notice the top lip is relaxed, it doesn’t pull up. Tongue is lifted in the back. In the ending position, the lips aren’t quite as rounded as they were in the stressed version of this Diphthong.
Here you see the jaw drop in the first position of the diphthong, stressed version on top. Notice that the jaw doesn’t drop as much for the unstressed diphthong.
Here’s the second position. The lips don’t round as much for the unstressed diphthong; they’re more relaxed.
Generally, the unstressed version of a vowel or diphthong is more relaxed and often doesn’t take the full mouth position, in this case, less jaw drop and less lip rounding. This is because we don’t take as much time with unstressed syllables. They’re shorter, so we simplify the mouth movements.
The OW diphthong, stressed: wound, OW
Unstressed: shutdown, ow
OW, ow, OW, ow.
Example words. Repeat with me:
about
sound
house
letdown
blackout
found