The /əʊ/ Sound

This is the /əʊ/ sound. /әʊ/ is a diphthong sound which means it is a combination of two vowel sounds that are pronounced within the same syllable. Connect with The English Language Club 🙋 1 to 1 Classes with Colin Munro 🔴 The next 100 sign ups get my course for FREE!!! 🤗 Join the Club: :// 📱 Get the App: 💻 Website: 🐦 Twitter: 📸 IG: 😆 Discord Server: The /әʊ/ sound is a combination of /ә/ and /ʊ/ or /u:/. Like vowels the diphthongs are all made through the mouth and are voiced which means that you vibrate your vocal chords to make the sound. Unlike with vowels and consonants, when you pronounce a diphthong sound, your mouth will change position and shape as you say the sound, because they combine two vowel sounds. So as you say the /әʊ/ sound your mouth will start on the position of the /əә/ sound and finish on the position of the /ʊ/ or /u:/ sound. This video is part of our series on phonetics and pronunciation for learners of English as a foreign language. Phonetics is the science of pronunciation. It can be helpful for people learning English because one of the most difficult things about the language is the spelling and pronunciation. English is not very phonetic and as a result the same letters are often pronounced in many different ways in different words. The IPA helps by providing a way to write words as they are pronounced. The normal alphabet only has 26 characters but there are 44 different sounds that are used to pronounce words. As well as that, most word in English originate from other languages like Greek, Latin and French to name just a few and in many cases the the language of origin influences how the word is pronounced. The IPA provides a symbol (phoneme) for each sound so the correct pronunciation can be written or printed in dictionaries. This video along with the others in our pronunciation series helps language learners to hear the correct pronunciation and also to know how to produce the sound of each phoneme.