“Oh Snap!" | Cracking the Problematic OH Diphthong

I'm in a hotel and that's got me thinking  about the OH diphthong, diphthong. This word  

simply means two vowel sounds together in the  same syllable. Because we have two together,  

that means we have to have a movement,  a change. Let me show you what I mean. 

Let's look at the word ‘know’.

know 

Now, slow motion.

know 

This is the first position, you can see the lips  are flared, oh, and now here the lips are more  

rounded.

You know what? Let me quickly introduce myself. 

I'm Rachel and I've been teaching English and  the American accent for over 15 years since 1999,  

that is last century! To learn more  about me and to take my free course,  

the Top Three Ways to Master the American  Accent, check out Rachelsenglish.com/free. 

So what's this change from flared to rounded  that makes both sounds of the diphthong.

You see that rounding? That's what some of  my students miss. Now, if you want to speak  

English with less of an accent if you want to  sound more American when you're speaking then  

you will want to master this diphthong. This  diphthong is everywhere. This is one of the six  

diphthongs in American English. American English  has a total of 41 sounds. For example, if it's  

in the word ‘phone’. Phone. Let's look at some  words up close and in slow motion slow motion. 

Slow motion.

Two more words with the Oh diphthong. 

road

rose

lows 

row

low 

blow

flows 

froze

It is important to know about and think  

about stress when we're studying a sound like a  vowel or a diphthong. Because the length of our  

syllables in American English usually come from  the vowel or diphthong sounds. So, in a stressed  

syllable like all of the words we've studied so  far, we have oh, up down shape with the voice,  

more length and a little bit more volume. Phone, phone. 

We have a notepad. No, nou, notepad. We even have a remote. Again, the O  

diphthong is in the stressed syllable.  Remote. Remote. We don't want it flat,  

and we also definitely don't want to cut off  the sound by not moving our lips. Not no. We  

don't want that, we want nou, nou, we don't want  fon, on, we want phone with that lip rounding.

quoting

total 

Now, in an unstressed syllable it will be flatter  it won't have that up down shape of stress. For  

example, pillow. Here we have the O diphthong but  it's in the second syllable unstressed. So rather  

than oh, it's going to be oh, pillow. Oh, oh. Not  much energy, not much volume there. Oh, oh. But my  

lips are still going to round a little bit. Let's  look at a word up close and in slow motion where  

the O diphthong is in an unstressed syllable.

ditto 

motto

Here,  we compare the first position of the stressed O on top with the unstressed version on the bottom.  

Less jaw drop for the unstressed version. And here, the second position. You can see  

that for the stressed o on top, the lips round  more than they do in the unstressed version. 

Let's look at what the tongue is doing inside the  mouth. The jaw drops for the beginning position,  

tongue shifts back a little bit. The lips  may start relaxed or may start rounding  

right from the beginning. After dropping the  jaw immediately start moving into the ending  

position. The lips round and the back part  of the tongue stretches up. Focus on the  

movement of the jaw and the lip rounding. This weekend I traveled by myself. This is  

a solo trip. Solo. There we have two o diphthongs.  I traveled alone, another o diphthong. Right now,  

try think of five words you know in  English that have the Oh diphthong. 

I found three more things here in  my hotel room. I found soap, O. 

I found a wine opener. O, opener. And I also found a bathrobe, robe. So  

if we just say robe, then it's going to have that  up down shape of stress. But if we say the whole  

compound word, bathrobe, then it's unstressed,  it's going to be flatter a little quieter. Robe,  

robe, robe so you've learned about how to make the  sound but what's really, really important now is  

that you move on to listening practice. You listen  to the sound over and over and then you listen and  

repeat. You can think about what your mouth is  supposed to be doing, feel that lip rounding. But  

also just focus on the sound what you're hearing. So let's do a little listening practice. Don't  

skip this. It's so important forgetting the  sound into your body and changing

that physical habit of speaking.

You'll hear each word four  times. Repeat each time. Focus on lip rounding. 

road

load 

rose

lows

row

low 

blow

flows 

froze

cloak 

croak

close 

crows

glow 

grow

promoter 

total

toe 

mow

bow 

go

Thank you so much for watching this video.

Oh, so, another diphthong.  I hope you liked it. Oh, hope, another diphthong.  

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

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