Pronouncing 'water' I American English Pronunciation

Hi, I'm Hadar, and this is a how-to-pronounce video.

And today we're going to talk about the word 'water'.

'water'.

A simple word, very useful.

You need to know how to say 'water'.

But sometimes people probably don't understand you when you ask for water in a restaurant or bar.

So let's help you with that.

Let's talk about the word 'water'.

So the beginning sound is W sound, right. Wah-

you round your lips. And then, and this is the tricky part, you open your mouth wide

into an AH as in 'father' vowel. Wah- , water

Waa-ter, okay

So it's not 'wter', 'wter' or 'woter', okay, but 'waa'.

Now, it depends on the dialect: sometimes is just an open AH in wah-wah, 'father'.

Sometimes it's a bit more rounded - whoa, okay. 'woater' I just round my lips a little bit more.

But for non-native speakers I highly recommend just to go towards the AH as in 'father' sound.

Like think of it as a double 'a' vowel. As if it spelled with 2 a's - 'waa'.

Then you have the flap T, okay. So in America you won't hear 'waTer'.

Although there is a T there and you're used to pronouncing T as 'tə', okay.

It actually it sounds like a D. waa-d'r

You can check out the flapped T tutorial to learn how to pronounce this sound okay.

So, wa-a-d'r

Then from this T-D you shift directly to a soft R: wa-a-d'r.

So I don't hear the E there. There is a letter E, right, it's not 'waTER'

wa-a-d'r, d'r, d'r, d'r.

So just try that: d'r, waa- and then d'r, d'r.

wa-a-d'r

Primary stress on the 'waa' and then a small d'r.

WA-a-d'r

Can get some water?

Can I get a bottle of water, please?

Bottle of water, please

or Can I get a glass of water?

Water, please.

wa-a-d'r

See? Now you won't have any problem to get water.

So you won't have to get dehydrated anymore, which is good.

So go get some drinks and water and I'll see you in the next video.

Bye.