Miss Elise
Pronunciation Coach
Master Pronunciation in Minutes: Free 5-Minute Tutorials
Engaging and accessible lesson plans to complement each tutorial.
Start your ESL classes with quick, effective pronunciation lessons—perfect as a warmup or standalone activity. Or, dive deeper to discover essential habits and techniques for mastering American English pronunciation with confidence.
The Sound of A, as in Father
How to produce long A: To produce the vowel sound A (as in father), place the tip of your tongue behind your lower front teeth while relaxing and flattening your tongue. Open your mouth wide and release your breath with a humming sound.
Practice the A (as in father) sound by repeating the following, making only the sound:
A, A, A
A, A, A
A, A, A
A, A, A
Repeat the following two times, exaggerating the A sound:
Aria, alms, awe, aha, ark
All, draw, paw, saw, law
Always, yawn, palm, author, aunt
Mamma, spa, Utah, walk, talk
Park, stark, lark, mark, ark
Calm, lawn, Shah, caught, laundry
Repeat the following sentences two times:
1) Aunt Audrey walked to work all the time.
2) Maude said she talked to Claude in Utah.
3) Jacques parked the Audi in the yard.
4) He caught the ball in his palm.
5) The laundry at the spa was filthy.
6) They committed a terrible faux pas when they walked in late.
7) Lonnie likes the calm mornings in Palm Springs.
8) The author repeated the alms before talking to the preacher.
9) The ark was built during the calm before the storm.
10)Mark knew the law well and thought he was always right.
* Please note, different letters can make the same sound, such as hard C and K, and the same letter can make different sounds depending on context, like cat/cake.