This is the “Sounds American” channel.

In this video we’re going to talk about the American vowel sound /oʊ/,

as in the word “go.”

You can also hear this sound in words like

“so,”

“snow,”

“coat,”

or “though”.

We’ll be using a special phonetic symbol - /oʊ/ - for this sound.

Most non-native English speakers easily distinguish the /oʊ/ sound, but some distort it in speech.

Read this phrase aloud.

If you feel you may have mispronounced this vowel sound, keep watching to learn how to fix this.

OK.

to pronounce the /oʊ/ sound, you should focus on the correct position of your jaw, lips, and tongue.

Round your lips and make them tense, then pull them in a tighter circle.

Pull your tongue back and tense it.

Remember, the /oʊ/ is a tense sound, so your lips and tongue should be very tense.

Your jaw should be partially lowered.

Let’s try saying it:

/oʊ/

/oʊ/

/oʊ/

Now, let’s practice this sound in some words.

You’ll see a word on a screen and hear its pronunciation.

Like this:

You’ll have a few seconds to pronounce the word, if you want to.

[sound prompt to start speaking]

Let’s begin!

You’re done!

Congratulations!

By the way, the /oʊ/ sound is most often represented by the letter “o,”

so when you hear this sound, you may assume that it should be written with this letter.

More on the spelling:

The /oʊ/ sound is written as the letter “o” in 80% of cases.

The remaining 20% are split between the following combination of letters:

“ow,” as in the word “snow,”

“oa,” as in the word “coat,”

“ou,” as in the word “though,”

and “ew,” as in the word “sew.”

We, too, like the spelling of the last combination! :).

Thanks for watching!

Hope you find it useful.

Stay tuned on our Sounds American channel!