CUP [ʌ] vs. COP [ɑ]…are you sure?

CUP and COP. These are two of the trickiest vowel sounds in American English but don’t worry, after this quick-but-powerful training video you’ll have it mastered. 

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Video Transcript:

When I first started teaching pronunciation, I was really surprised that COP and CUP sounded the same to many of my students.

Cop

Cup

What? They seem so different to me. Then I got to hear the sounds from my students’ perspective, and I started to understand why. I guarantee by the end of this video, you are going to know how to learn to not only hear these two sounds perfectly, but how to say them perfectly yourself. I’ve seen lots of students who end up sounding native on these sounds when they work the way I’ll show you to in this video.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with having an accent from another language when you speak English. Your accent is beautiful. But if it’s your goal to sort these two vowels out, let’s do it. If you don’t already have it, click here for my free cheat sheet on the sounds of American English, you’ll get photos for each sound like you’ll see in this video, link in the video description

Let’s go back to our minimal pair cop and cup. A minimal pair is a set of two words where only one thing is different, in this case, the middle sound, the vowel. Let’s watch in slow motion, then we’ll compare the mouth positions

Cop

Cup

Now here is a freeze frame of AH and UH.

So on the top, we have ah like in cop and the bottom we have uh like in cup. And I mean wow, look how similar the lips are. They look almost the same. If you only look at the lips, you might now see any difference at all but there is a difference with the tongue. Up here on Ah, look at this. We can see my back molars in a way that we cannot see in the uh as in butter vowel. So the tongue is definitely doing something a little differently. Also here, do you see how the tongue even the front part looks a little bit darker than it does here. This was hitting the light more than the tongue for the ah vowel. Now, let’s look from the side. Now, here we’re comparing three things. The mouth at rest with the ah vowel and the uh vowel and I’ve drawn in my teeth, my hard palate, my tongue, my soft palate. The first thing I want you to notice it the tongue position in the mouth at rest and how it’s very similar to the tongue position is the uh as in butter vowel. You’re not doing much. The main thing I notice is here in the soft palate. So the soft palate hangs in the back of the throat and when it hangs down like this, air comes up here and that’s how we make nasal sounds but for the vowels in American English, the soft palate is closed for all of them. So the main thing I notice is that is a big difference and what that means is there’s a little bit more feeling of space here in the back than there is when the mouth is at rest. So if you’re resting your mouth and you drop your jaw a little bit, you may feel a little extra space creation back here and then you say uh. Super relaxed, try not to do a thing to your tongue or to your throat, Uh. Now for ah, the tongue is different, isn’t it? And we saw that. We saw how this part of the tongue in the forward-facing photo was darker because it’s just not quite as far forward as this, as the tip of the tongue in the uh as in butter vowel. And that also let us see the tongue pulling back a little bit here is also what let us see those back molars in the front-facing photo.

So, the difference between ah like cop and uh like cup has to do with the tongue. Soft palate is up in both of them. Jaw drop, very similar in both of them. Lips, neutral and relaxed in both of them but for ah like father, like cop, ah, ah. There’s just a little tension in the tongue as it does something. It presses down and back a little bit, the uh as in butter vowel try to do absolutely nothing with your tongue, no tension make it match the feeling of the tongue when the mouth is at rest.

So let’s just look at our forward-facing photos one more time. The top one. Ah. The back of the tongue is doing a little bit more work pressing down and back, let’s us see a little bit more of what’s happening in the mouth. Ah. For the uh as in butter, the front of the tongue is a little bit higher, it’s a little bit more forward, that’s covering up a little bit more of what we see.

The main issue my students have is both AH and UH sound like AH. So I’ll say, COP, CUP. And they’ll say, COP, COP. They can’t quite get that UH sound because of relaxation. Remember in UH, you want the tongue and throat to be very much so like the mouth at rest. Just jaw drop, no other muscles engaging. And this relates to a concept called placement. It doesn’t have to do with your tongue, lips, jaw, but it’s how muscles in your neck and maybe face affect sound. If you haven’t seen this video, it’s on placement and it’s absolutely the best thing I’ve ever made. I will link to that video in the video description but that will also help if you’re having a hard time perfecting UH.

So we’ve just looked at a comparison of AH and UH, compared the physical differences. Useful to know, but knowing that alone probably won’t improve these vowels much for you if they’re really tough.

The next thing is listening practice. I remember I had a Chinese student once when I was living in New York city; she lived over in Jersey City, and she said “Rachel, these two words sound the same to me.” Cop, cup. “How can I practice them when I don’t hear them?” And by working with her I discovered something incredible. It didn’t actually matter if she could hear the difference. I made an audio file for her of a bunch of minimal pairs, it was maybe 10 minutes long, with a bunch of repetition, and she listened to it every day, once or maybe twice for about a week. Then, she could hear the difference. Then, she started repeating with the audio, and she did that training for maybe a week, and when we next met, she sounded totally native on these words. And she couldn’t even hear the difference in them before. I also had a Russian student once, same thing. Couldn’t hear that difference AH, UH, and after a month, sounded native on all those minimal pairs. You listen enough, and your brain will sort it out. You don’t have to DO anything.

And you might think, 2 weeks? One month? That’s a lot of time to dedicate to one pair of sounds. Yes, but. I’ve found that my students when they improve in one area of the American accent, they always improve in other areas too. If you master these vowels, your placement will get better. Better placement usually makes everything you say sound more natural. So everything builds on it.

So let’s get into the training. You’re going to see and hear ten minimal pairs at regular pace. If you can’t hear the difference, just listen. If you can hear the difference, repeat out loud in the pauses.

A quick note on the symbols and sounds before we start comparing these minimal pairs. We’ve talked about ah versus uh like in cup versus cop but we’re also going to be comparing another vowel, the ah as in law vowel with uh. This is another vowel that my students often mix up with uh and ah as in law is very similar to ah as in father so you’ll see minimal pairs like cop and cup. And you’ll also see minimal pairs like caught and cut. So even though it’s not the exact same vowel that we’re comparing, it’s very similar and it’s going to be great to get these sorted out as well.

Bonk

Bunk

Boss

Bus

Bought

But

Caught

Cut

Cop

Cup

Cost

Cussed

Cough

Cuff

Crossed

Crust

Dawn

Done

Dog

Dug

Already, your brain is starting to do some clarifying of these sounds. I have 18 more minimal pairs. Let’s work with them. Now, you’ll hear each one at regular pace, then slow motion.

Doll

Dull

Doll

Dull

Flawed

Flood

Flawed

Flood

Fond

Fund

Fond

Fund

Gone

Gun

Gone

Gun

Got

Gut

Got

Gut

Hot

Hut

Hot

Hut

Lock

Luck

Lock

Luck

Long

Lung

Long

Lung

Pawn

Pun

Pawn

Pun

Pop

Pup

Pop

Pup

Robber

Rubber

Robber

Rubber

Rot

Rut

Rot

Rut

Shot

Shut

Shot

Shut

Song

Sung

Song

Sung

Stock

Stuck

Stock

Stuck

Strong

Strung

Strong

Strung

Tong

Tongue

Tong

Tongue

Wrong

Rung

Wrong

Rung

So you know the assignment. Listen to these two minimal pair sections every day this week. If it’s more convenient for you, rip the video, download it, keep the audio only and edit it so you’re hearing each word 3, 4, 5 times in a row. I don’t care if you do that. Permission granted to do what you need to do to work with this audio. Listen daily, repeat out loud daily. This is what all my students do in Rachel’s English Academy. They have all the materials they need, the method, to train on every sound and every aspect of American English. And this is why they see amazing improvement. Now, if you have joined the channel membership, thank you, you get access to two extra videos, link in the video description. The first is a listen and repeat with four repetitions for each of these 28 minimal pairs, paced out with the right timing and gaps for the training. You get to see the mouth up close and in slow motion, of course. And the second video is for after you’ve really solidified the difference in these sounds then you hit hard the training of the UH vowel with your new-found lower placement,104 for common words, regular pace, slow motion, with repetition, gaps for repetition for the training. If you want access those, click the join button to see what else you get in addition.

And here it is, that video that I said is the best thing I’ve ever made. I work with all sorts of different languages, I work with a sound mixing engineer, and we go through an anatomy lesson all to reveal to you how the core sound of American English is different from the core sound of your native language, and how to switch to a new placement when speaking English. Thanks so much for studying with me. Check out Rachel’s English Academy to learn about my in-depth training courses in the American accent and please subscribe with notifications on to stay on top of all my English lessons, I absolutely love being your English teacher. That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.

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