Today I teach you all about a the au / aw Digraph, and why you're overthinking this sound. It's an easy letter combination to pronounce, all that you need to do is forget what you previously learned in school and open your ears to this episode! Let's get to work, and learn to say vowel sounds clearly and confidently!
Follow along with these practice phrases:
Auto shop | Self-taught | Caught off guard | Poor audio quality
Practice these au / aw Digraphs in American Idioms:
A yawn fest A very boring event
The show was a total yawn fest, I was so bored!
It dawned on me I realized something
It suddenly dawned on me that my phone was gone.
The Rule of Law Nobody is above the law
The rule of law applies to the highest placed officials.
Check out the video course here!
Teachers Appy to Join the Community Here
https://qlh5kgslus7.typeform.com/to/EDLEjgGz
Today I teach you all about a the au / aw Digraph, and why you're overthinking this sound. It's an easy letter combination to pronounce, all that you need to do is forget what you previously learned in school and open your ears to this episode! Let's get to work, and learn to say vowel sounds clearly and confidently!
Follow along with these practice phrases:
Auto shop | Self-taught | Caught off guard | Poor audio quality
Practice these au / aw Digraphs in American Idioms:
A yawn fest A very boring event
The show was a total yawn fest, I was so bored!
It dawned on me I realized something
It suddenly dawned on me that my phone was gone.
The Rule of Law Nobody is above the law
The rule of law applies to the highest placed officials.
Check out the video course here!
Teachers Appy to Join the Community Here
https://qlh5kgslus7.typeform.com/to/EDLEjgGz
Welcome to the Accent Training Club podcast, a podcast where I help you harness natural sounding, spoke in English, particularly with an American accent. And today we're gonna look at something which is pretty American sounding. The way that we stretch it out today, we're gonna look at a particular vowel sound. This is what we call a diagram. What is a diagram? Graph diagram? Well, this is when two letters come together to make one sound. Now, don't get too caught up on all the fancy names that we give them, because what is really about is boosting your ability to recognize this and repeat it. So, I mean, all the names are just to confuse you and, and make you give up. We're gonna look right past those, and we're just gonna get straight to the good content. This diagram that we're gonna look at is when the letters au or a w come together in a word, sometimes in the beginning of a word, sometimes in the middle of a word, sometimes in the case of a w, at the end of a word, words like law saw. So we're gonna look at a whole bunch of these today, and we're just gonna see how you can get used to these sounds because notice when I just said saw and law notice I'm not making like a so low, I'm not rounding my lips and bringing them inwards. I'm actually only just making one motion. I'm dropping my jaw, keeping my tongue kinda low in my mouth, and I'm getting this ah, ah, sound. And the trouble is that a great number of non-native English speakers will try to force that W or that you sound in there to get low or pose instead of pause pose. So we wanna get the hang of this today and develop a good ear in listening skills to really get used to the sounds of the vowels of spoken English in an American accent. Now, just before we get into that, you know, I've gotta take a moment to tell you folks about this fantastic video course. It's off the charts, People are loving it, people are eating it up every day. I'm getting new people signing up for this. And I want you folks to get in on this too. So make sure that you check the link in the description, which will bring you straight to the video course, where you'll have the opportunity to try out the content, a little bit of free practice material, video content. Mind you, this is a video course, so I don't put audio only content in there. So check out that content. The course is full of fantastic lessons, muscle memory exercises and some quizzes so that you've got a little bit of feedback for yourself and you can see how you progress when it comes to harnessing the rhythm of the American accent. So check out my video course folks, it's on you to me. It's available through the link in the description. And take your spoken English seriously. Now, one more thing that I gotta mention to you folks, is if you have not already, something that you can do for free is you can hit subscribe. When you subscribe to this podcast. You'll be notified whenever new episodes pop up. And that's something that we all need, right? If you're notified when the new episodes come up, well, you will have skills in English developed that other people who aren't notified will not develop. And isn't that what we're all here for? To make sure that our English is a little bit better than everybody else's. A lot of people wanna stand out with their English. You know, you don't wanna sound like everybody else coming from your country or everybody else who speaks your native language. I'm not saying that you shouldn't. I'm saying that this is what I've been told. And a great way to take control of your own spoken language is through subscribing to this podcast and being the first one of all your friends to know how to do it right. So, hit subscribe. Check out the video course and take control of your speech. You folks are able to do incredible things. See for yourself, Just see for yourself. Let's get into today's lesson. So au and a w come together to make one sound. Does this letter combination always make this same sound? No. Sometimes at the ends of words or between syllables, we'll hear different sounds come out if there's an au or an a w. But today we're just gonna focus on a whole bunch of familiar words that are gonna make sure you develop the skills to reproduce this effectively. Check this out right here. So AU and a W, they come together to make one sound. This is a diagram like th c H. These are diagrams. Now at the ends of words, a W is a diagram. It makes this a sound. But if au comes at the end of a word, it makes an O sound. Tableau plateau O. However, a w at the end of a word, A this a sound is the same movement as what we learn when we learn the short O words like top stop. Sorry. Ah. It's also the same as the A sound that we hear in Father, A Father, a lot of people will pronounce this, Ah, like La PAs and claw as a moving sound. People will round their lips to make an O saying low pose. Our goal is to learn a new habit, to teach our muscles a new habit. Keeping the lips neutral in the tongue, low in the mouth mouth when we make this a sound. So let me just repeat some of these words that I've said. So you can get an idea of what we're working with. La Pause Claw. Cause saw. Now this a sound is common in many languages and I find people don't have too much of a difficulty picking it up. Maybe some minor adjustments that we gotta make, but overall it isn't a terribly tricky sound. Ah, what we wanna do is first adjust the tongue position. We wanna feel the backs of the bottom teeth with a tip of your tongue. Feel that yourself back to the bottom teeth. Then we wanna have the entire tongue around this level. So we're keeping our tongue low. We wanna make sure that the center of the tongue is pointing kind of downwards. You know, it's not pointing up. If it points up, we're gonna get an ah. But if it points down the center of the tongue, we get an a subtle difference in the movement. We then just drop the jaw and add our voice. Ah. It's like when you go to the dentist and they tell you to say, Ah, ah, that's the sound. It's the same A as what we hear in Father, Father. Ah. So we're gonna take that awe from Father, and we're gonna add it to a whole bunch of words that have a W and a U repeat back to me. Otto. Notice the syllable stress there. A otto strong, then weak. Very important. Otto. Here's another. Awful, awful. Repeat that back. Awful. Another one here. Cause notice how I stretch that right out. Chaw. Ah, hog, my lips are neutral. I'm not bringing my lips in towards the middle. That's the habit we've gotta overcome. Folks, keep the lips neutral. Ah ha. Couple more here. Saw stretched right out. Saw jaw like what we're dropping down your jaw. I got one more word for you. Thaw. Haw. What is thaw? A lot of people are unsure about this word thaw. People don't really feel confident using it. Here's what thaw means. Unfreeze thaw, unfreeze. They're synonymous. Check your packaging on your chicken in your fridge. It'll say, Thaw the chicken in cool water for however long. Or if you're celebrating Christmas and you're gonna make a Turkey, check the Turkey. It'll say, Thaw the Turkey. They don't say unfreeze. Typically on packaging, it'll say thaw. And that's a word that I want you to for now on use confidently. If you're cooking later today and you need to unfreeze some of your food, don't think to yourself that you're gonna unfreeze it. You are thawing that raw meat. Thaw the raw chicken. Thaw the raw chicken. Why not? All right, I've got just a little bit of geography here for you. Just a little bit of geography. And notice how that A in geography stretches out, right? In the same way as these other os, different spelling. This one's an O, it's a short O geography. Gi, just like thaw cot. Ka. So some geography, repeat back to me. Austria. Austria, I believe I've got some listeners in Austria. Hello to my Austrian listeners. Austria, Australia. Australia. And anybody who's in Australia knows that Australia will often just be called Oz, right? Oz, Oz, Australia. And by the way, notice the contrast in the syllable stress there. How the Trey go. Strong aray. Play around with that yourself. Australia, Austria, next one up. Saudi Arabia. I know I've got listeners in Saudi Arabia. It pops up in the stats. Saudi Arabia. Thank you for listening folks. Happy to have you. And here's a couple more. These ones are some cities in the United States. Austin, this is a a city. It's growing quite a bit. I actually have a few students who are currently moving to this city, or at least the area of this city in Texas. Austin, Austin, Texas. And notice again the contrast in the syllable. Stress. Austin, strong, weak, very important to note that contrast and to adjust your own speech to it, Texas, Austin, Texas. All right. Here's one more for people out in Florida. We've got Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, Lauder, stretching that law right out for Lauderdale, Florida. Absolutely beautiful place, Fort Lauderdale. All right, folks, if you know how I run things and you know what's coming up next, just a few common phrases that I'm sure you can work into your daily life using this diagram kind of sound. Repeat back to me. A yon fest. Y we all yawn. This is a very human thing to yawn. Everybody yawns. But saying it is tricky. A lot of people wanna say yn y or Jo, first off the J to the year. I feel you folks. I know what's going on there. You're just filling in the sound of your native language. But we wanna be careful here not to get a J, but a y, y Y, a yawn fest. This one's more of an idiomatic expression actually, but whatever. We've got it. We've got it at the beginning with the common phrases. A yawn fest is to say an extremely boring event. I really hope that this podcast is not a yawn fest for you folks. I try to play with my voice. I try to do all these things to keep it interesting, add in little anecdotes and whatnot. So I don't want it to be a yawn fest. I wanna keep you captivated. But a yawn fest is something that's extremely boring. Like if you've got a university lecture with somebody who's very monotone and they just talk like this for a good 45 minutes and you have to take notes. Oh my God, that's a yawn fest. This is a yawn fest kind of presentation, folks, But I don't give that. You see the difference. I put a lot of heart into this and I try not to make it a yawn fest. I'm sure you get the point. Next one down, repeat back to me, Otto. Shop, auto Shop. Notice the sound in that strong, weak, strong auto shop, auto shop, auto shop. I drop my car off at the auto shop. An auto shop is a mechanic. It's a place where you leave your car when it, you know, maybe you need some parts changed. You need something done on your car and you don't have time to figure it out yourself. You probably could. I'll betcha. I mean, if you've got an older car, the new ones, those are just computers, just driving computers. But if you got an older car and something goes wrong in it, and you've got a little time, try looking it up on YouTube, it's worth it. You can save yourself quite a bit of money and you learn something new about your car. Not to take business away from auto shops. I think mechanics do a great job on automobiles, but I just wanted to make you aware of that. YouTube is very useful when it comes to minor fixes on your car. And if you like learning from YouTube, you're probably someone who is self taught. Self taught. You teach yourself things. You know, you take time, you read a book, you apply what you learn, you get good at doing it. And then you wanna learn another skill. You read another book, you watch a few YouTube videos, you apply what you're learning, you get good at it. That's what you're doing right now. As a matter of fact, self taught you are a self-taught person. Like self-taught just means that you kind of learn the skills on your own initiative and that you didn't need formal education to pick up the skills. That's somebody who's self-taught. And that's what we're doing right now. Podcast. This is very informal, but here we are. You're a self-taught person. Next one, caught. Caught off guard, caught off guard, caught off guard. Notice how the vowel sound in each one of those words. Caught off guard is the exact same, the same quality of sound, the same stress, and the same position caught off guard. I was caught off guard. It caught me off guard. It's the same vow sound in all three of them. So practice that one a lot. That one is very valuable when it comes to developing an ear for this. And not to mention there's a flap tee in the middle. Is there not between caught and off, caught off, caught off guard. We're linking those words together. Practice that one. Practice that one so that you're not caught off guard by this sound in a regular conversation. And by the way, what does caught off guard mean? This means taken by surprise. This means something is surprising you. It caught you when you weren't guarded, when you weren't prepared, caught off guard. All right, I've got one more for you. One more short phrase. Poor audio quality, poor audio quality, poor audio quality. Doesn't it suck when something has poor audio quality? As a matter of fact, I don't, I may, there may be a little bit of an echo on this. Sorry. If there is folks, now that I think of poor audio quality, I didn't insulate this room with enough blankets as much as I usually do. So if there's a minor echo, sorry, there might be some poor audio quality right now. And it's just because I didn't do my due diligence. I didn't put up the blankets that I needed to reduce the reverberation of the sound. And now I may have poor audio quality. Or we get this on Zoom calls. You're just trying to have a chat on Zoom and the audio keeps cutting out. Poor audio quality. It happens. So a Yan Fest auto shop, self taught, caught off guard, poor audio quality, great phrases to practice with. Folks, these are things that you can work into your daily life. So practice often because these ones are very valuable for your spoken English. So where do we go from here? Well, a few idiomatic expressions, and then we wrap this one up. I've got things to do. I've gotta drive around a little bit tonight, maybe get some Christmas shopping done. I just got paid time to go do some Christmas shopping. That's gonna be nice. It's fun, isn't it? Even though you're buying things for other people. There's just a little bit of magic in it when you're doing it around Christmas, I think. I guess any time that you're buying presents for people, it feels good and I'm looking forward to it. And if you're looking to buy a present for anybody this holiday season, what better to gift them than the gift of knowledge? Knowledge is power folks. And I've got a video course, which is fantastic. It's full of knowledge and it's going to help your loved ones, your friends, the people that you care about in boosting their spoken English. So make sure that you take the opportunity to check out the video course. There's a link in the description, and I'm happy to be of service this holiday season. Anyway, idiomatic expressions. I promised idioms. Let me tell you about some idioms. First off, folks, I gotta tell you that it dawned on me. It dawned on me. This means I realized something, I realized something new. It suddenly dawned on me that my phone was missing. Oh my God. Doesn't it suck when that happens? When your phone's not in your pocket? It used to be your wallet. It used to be my wallet's missing. Oh my God. Now your phone and your wallet. It dawned on me that my phone was gone. This means I realized something. I realized something brand new. It dawned on me. Now, the next thing up is the rule of law. The rule of law. The rule of law is not necessarily an matic expression. This is actually a legal term, but it's a good one. It's a good one to know. The rule of law is that the law applies equally to everybody, even officials in the highest positions. Does this actually apply in real life? No, it's imaginary. Come on. We all know this is just fairytale stuff, but it is an actual thing. It is an actual legal term, and it is an actual rule. The rule of law. The law is supposed to apply to everybody, but we're not here to get upset about, you know, whoever thinks that they're above the law. We're just here to practice our English. So it dawned on me, I realized something. The rule of law means nobody's above the law. We're all equal under the law. These idiomatic expressions, along with some of these others that we've seen caught off self-taught Yawn Fest, great expressions to use in your daily life. And I encourage you to use these in your daily life. Folks, I encourage you to practice these. Repeat these, get used to them. And if you truly are a self-taught person, then I am sure that you'll have no difficulty working these into your regular spoken English. So note these expressions. Use them with friends. If you don't have friends who speak English, use them with coworkers. If you don't have coworkers who speak English, use them on clubhouse. Go on the app clubhouse, check it out, and use these idiomatic expressions. I believe Clubhouse is open for all phones. Now everybody can download it all over the world. Check out clubhouse and use some of these idiomatic expressions. Why wouldn't you? You can speak English on clubhouse. There's tons of English speaking rooms. I get on there and I'm gonna be on there this week. So practice'em. Practice'em a lot. Anyway, I've gotta get going folks. I gotta wrap this one up for today. Thank you very much for listening today. I'm glad to have you as a member of the American Accent Training Club. This is a club that, well, I've made it myself. I have registered it as an actual business in Canada. So I mean, I've made some good steps. At least I can pay taxes, but that's irrelevant. The point is, thank you for joining me today. I'm glad to have been of service. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to teach you some valuable skills. Now, go out in your daily life and practice saying things like raw meat, self-taught, or jawline against the law, rule of law. Practice these yourself, and you'll get the hang of this in no time. Well, it's been an honor chatting with you today, folks. I wish you a fun farewell. Enjoy your morning, your evening, your afternoon, your late. If it's very, very late in the night and it doesn't really feel like it's tomorrow. That's all right. Enjoy that. You know, two, three in the morning. That's all right. Enjoy it. These are the moments that we have to enjoy and you are using them correctly to learn new skills. So thank you for joining me today. Make sure that you, you check out my video course on you to me, because you are totally capable of enhancing your spoken English with this stuff. And we're gonna take things from here in the days to come now. Have a good one, folks.