ENGLISH VOWEL [æ] | BAT, CASH, MAD

Today I’m going to show you all the way into my  throat, so you can understand American vowels.

The other day I was working with students in a  live class and someone asked a question about  

æ like in cat, bat, match. Do you have  problems with this sound? And another  

student asked about æ in the word hand. æ,  hand. The æ sound isn’t actually there.

I’m Rachel and I’ve been teaching the  American accent and English listening  

skills to non-native speakers for over  15 years. Check out Rachelsenglish.com  

to learn more about improving your spoken English  

and to sign up for my free course ‘Top 3  Ways to Master the American Accent’.

First, let’s look at the question  about æ. I want you to really see  

what changes in the mouth to make that sound.

Veronica struggles with the tongue position  in æ of the vowel æ like cat. Can you  

explain the position in details? I find it  difficult to lift the back of the tongue.

Okay, so I can definitely give it  to you in detail. You can also watch  

the video where you get to see I've drawn it in.

I can actually show you these images right now.

The mouth at rest is on the left. The æ vowel  is on the right. Of course, we see the jaw  

drop. Look at the corners of the lips. You're  going to see how that really moves in a second.

The back of the tongue. It reaches up at the back.

Let's look at some words up close and  in slow motion to study this position.

attic

Notice the jaw drop quite a bit. The  corners of the lips are pulling back  

just a little bit and the tongue tip is  down, touching the backs of the bottom  

front teeth. Now you see quite a bit of  the tongue because it's lifted in the back.

attic

batter

Again, quite a bit of jaw drop. Corners  of the lips pull back just a little bit  

and the tongue tip is down behind the  bottom front teeth lifted in the back.

Batter

Which is the hardest vowel sound for you in  American English? Let me know in the comments.

But let's get back to that live class and see the  æ as in bat vowel compared with a like in father.

Okay, but how do you make it? Tongue  tip is down, it touches here, A,  

A. Now if I just I'm going to tilt my chin  a bit so you can see a little bit better. æ,  

a. A is in father. You can see whoa,  you can see way back into my mouth.  

The tongue lowers. I'm going to go from a  as in father to æ. You can see that lift.

a

æ

And I noticed, just when we were  talking about æ versus ab plus n,  

the corners of the lips pulled back a little bit  and the tongue looked like it got wider too did,  

didn't it? I'm going to go again  from a as in father to æ as in bat.

Ooh, there's some saliva in there sorry.

a

ae

Now we're going to move in slow motion so you  can really see what happens. Starting with æ,  

you see the corners of the lips are pulled back  a little bit the tongue is higher in the back  

and now as we move slowly into a as in father,  you'll see the tongue lowers in the back and  

you see the corners of the lips relax in. Here  they are again side by side. You see more into  

the mouth more of the inside cheek of the mouth  in the a as in father sound. That's because the  

tongue is lower in the back. For the æ vowel the  tongue is higher in the back so you see more of  

the tongue. Also notice the little crease in the  corner of my mouth for the ae vowel whereas for  

the a vowel the corner of the mouth is relaxed.  So for the a it's pulling back just a little bit.

a

ae

Wow, it definitely feels weird looking down  my throat that much. But I hope that helps.

I made Rachel’s English Academy for students  just like this. I saw how listening training  

helped my students find really native sounds  much better than me describing the sound or  

showing them a photo. Rachel’s English  Academy is the best place to improve your  

accent and your listening comprehension of spoken  American English. And I do have a free course,  

the Top 3 Things to Master the American Accent.  You can get it at RachelsEnglish.com/free.

After we watch more about the æ  vowel, I’ll talk a bit more about  

the listening training you can do  to really transform your voice.

Now, here’s what’s really confusing about  ae. It’s not always ae. It changes before  

nasal consonants. A student asked  about this in the same live class.

Okay, Sophia is asking about, what the heck is up  with the æ as in bat vowel when it's followed by  

m or n? Is the position the same? if so, why  do they sound different? Great question. No,  

the position is not quite the same. So,  let's just take æ like cat followed by a t,  

vowel is pure. Now let's take æ like  in ham. It's not æ anymore, is it?

So,  I'm going to go back and forth between cat and ham  and then I'm going to go back and forth between  

just the vowels with none of the consonants. And  I will say for me it's kind of hard to isolate  

the æ that's in ham because we never make that  sound when it's not followed by m or n. Okay,  

so here we go, cat, ham, cat, ham, I'm going to  point my face towards the microphone. Cat, ham.

æ

So for æ, I would say there's more jaw drop,  there's a little bit more room that's created  

and some sometimes we do that a little bit  we don't always have to. Ca, cat. For the a  

followed by m or n like in hand or ham, there's a  little less jaw drop initially so æ, that's pure.

ae

æ

So my lips relaxed a little  bit, the jaw was less dropped a,  

æ. These came forward didn't they? They  pulled back a little bit for the pure ae.

ae

æ

So, this part of the mouth is more  relaxed, the jaw is less dropped  

the back of the tongue is still lifted  but it kind of immediately starts put  

coming back down which is how we kind of  slide into the uh ending part of that so,

æ

ham

hand

I hope that clarifies.

Now I said I would talk a little about the  training practice. I call this method the play it,  

say it method, and my Academy is full of 40  or 50 thousand small training segments so my  

students can start hearing English differently so  they can start producing English differently.

So the thing that I love about the play it  say it method is there's almost no way to  

do it wrong. It's not like this is your fault  because it's not working. There's nothing you  

need to do other than relaxing and saying  what you hear and you won't be perfect at  

the beginning and that doesn't matter. That  doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that you're  

not going to get to sounding 100% the way you  want to sound it's just the first step of it.

So if you're listening to a soundboard and  you're playing it and you're hearing it and  

you're repeating it back and you're feeling like  I know I'm not repeating that back exactly the  

way I'm hearing it, it doesn't matter. All  you need to do is do it more. And you may  

want to move to the slow motion if you're  finding like there are too many syllables  

here and these transitions are too hard for  me right now. Do the slow motion. Do it like  

10-20 times a day each piece, do that for a week,  I guarantee your mouth is going to figure it out.

And the important thing is it figures it  out without your brain telling it, do this,  

now do that, now do this. It figures it out  just through the method of playing it and  

saying it. Your body and your mind is built  to do this. This is how you already learned  

a language. You already learned earned it by  the immersion and hearing when you were a baby,  

when you were learning your own language, you  are built to be able to learn how to produce  

these sounds, learn how to produce this music  of English, it's just a matter of the time.

The exposure and the time and the repetition. The  thing that's so important about the play it say  

it method is, you don't, there is no stopping,  evaluating, judging, criticizing. That is not  

part of it. You're not asking yourself; did I do  that right in the moment? You're just playing it,  

saying it. It's a different state of  mind that's always pointed forward. Now,  

if you want to record yourself doing  that and then go back and listen to it,  

and say did that sound right? That  didn't sound quite right. Why? Fine,  

that's great. But don't do it in the moment that  is not part of the method. The method is just  

playing it and saying it over and over, maybe  your eyes are closed and you're just letting  

your body adjust into the next one. You're not  judging what you just did. This is how it works.

If you’re curious about the Academy, join me as  a student there at RachelsEnglishAcademy.com,  

or try that free course at  RachelsEnglish.com/free. Keep  

your learning going now with this video, and  don’t forget to subscribe with notifications on,  

I love being your English teacher. That’s it  and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.