Week 11: Segmental feature_vowels

On my last blog post, I discussed my practice on consonants. This time, I will focus my practice on vowels of Received Pronunciation accent. The same as with consonants, I feel like my vowels are still not really accurate. Therefore, I tried to practice again. I still used the same website that I used to practice my consonants, that is, BBC Learning English. I also practiced by imitating the words from the videos until I was sure that I imitate them accurately (at least based on my listening).

My first attention was on the low back vowel as in the words job, north, and dog. I learned from the video in the above website and also the video that I embedded on my fourth week blog post that in order to produce this vowel sound in RP accent, the lips are rounded which is different from NAE accent in which the lip is not rounded but the jaw is dropped. Also, I focused my practice on the vowels that are lengthened due to the non-rhotic /r/ sound in RP. If the vowels are preceding /r/, the vowels become longer since the /r/ is dropped such as in the words nurse, work, there, and superb.

Here is my recording after practicing several times:

For the next practice, I will focus on suprasegmental features of the Received Pronunciation accent.