Oh Snap!” | Cracking the Problematic OH Diphthong

In this English pronunciation lesson you’ll learn all about the OH diphthong. If you’re learning to speak American English you know how tricky this sound is.

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Video Transcript:

I’m in a hotel and that’s got me thinking about the Oh diphthong, diphthong. This word simply means two vowel sounds together in the same syllable. Because we have two together, that means we have to have a movement, a change. Let me show you what I mean.

Let’s look at the word ‘know’.

know

Now, slow motion.

know

This is the first position, you can see the lips are flared, oh, and now here the lips are more rounded.

oh

You know what? Let me quickly introduce myself.

I’m Rachel and I’ve been teaching English and the American accent for over 15 years since 1999, that is last century! To learn more about me and to take my free course, the Top Three Ways to Master the American Accent, check out Rachelsenglish.com/free.

So what’s this change from flared to rounded that makes both sounds of the diphthong?

You see that rounding? That’s what some of my students miss. Now, if you want to speak English with less of an accent if you want to sound more American when you’re speaking then you will want to master this diphthong. This diphthong is everywhere. This is one of the six diphthongs in American English. American English has a total of 41 sounds. For example, if it’s in the word ‘phone’. Phone. Let’s look at some words up close and in slow motion slow motion.

Slow motion.

Two more words with the Oh diphthong.

road

load

rose

lows

row

low

blow

flows

froze

It is important to know about and think about stress when we’re studying a sound like a vowel or a diphthong. Because the length of our syllables in American English usually come from the vowel or diphthong  sounds. So, in a stressed syllable like all of the words we’ve studied so far, we have oh, up down shape with the voice, more length and a little bit more volume.

Phone, phone.

We have a notepad. No, nou, notepad.

We even have a remote. Again, the Oh diphthong is in the stressed syllable. Remote. Remote. We don’t want it flat, and we also definitely don’t want to cut off the sound by not moving our lips. Not no. We don’t want that, we want nou, nou, we don’t want fon, on, we want phone with that lip rounding.

quoting

total

Now, in an unstressed syllable it will be flatter it won’t have that up down shape of stress. For example, pillow. Here we have the Oh diphthong but it’s in the second syllable unstressed. So rather than oh, it’s going to be oh, pillow. Oh, oh. Not much energy, not much volume there. Oh, oh. But my lips are still going to round a little bit. Let’s look at a word up close and in slow motion where the Oh diphthong is in an unstressed syllable.

ditto

motto

Here, we compare the first position of the stressed O on top with the unstressed version on the bottom. Less jaw drop for the unstressed version.

And here, the second position. You can see that for the stressed o on top, the lips round more than they do in the unstressed version.

Let’s look at what the tongue is doing inside the mouth. The jaw drops for the beginning position, tongue shifts back a little bit. The lips may start relaxed or may start rounding right from the beginning. After dropping the jaw immediately start moving into the ending position. The lips round and the back part of the tongue stretches up. Focus on the movement of the jaw and the lip rounding.

This weekend I traveled by myself. This is a solo trip. Solo. There we have two oh diphthongs. I traveled alone, another oh diphthong. Right now, try think of five words you know in English that have the Oh diphthong.

I found three more things here in my hotel room. I found soap, O.

I found a wine opener. O, opener.

And I also found a bathrobe, robe. So if we just say robe, then it’s going to have that up down shape of stress. But if we say the whole compound word, bathrobe, then it’s unstressed, it’s going to be flatter a little quieter. Robe, robe, robe so you’ve learned about how to make the sound but what’s really, really important now is that you move on to listening practice. You listen to the sound over and over and then you listen and repeat. You can think about what your mouth is supposed to be doing, feel that lip rounding. But also just focus on the sound what you’re hearing.

So let’s do a little listening practice. Don’t skip this. It’s so important forgetting the sound into your body and changing that physical habit of speaking. You’ll hear each word four times. Repeat each time. Focus on lip rounding.

road

load

rose

lows

row

low

blow

flows

froze

cloak

croak

close

crows

glow

grow

promoter

total

toe

mow

bow

go

Thank you so much for watching this video. Oh, so, another diphthong. I hope you liked it. Oh, hope, another diphthong. Keep your learning going now with this video and don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on, I absolutely love being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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