Firstly, a note on the heading of this blog. Unfortunately my website header only has one font, which does not use the correct 'a' symbol needed for typing the phonetic sound we're discussing today: /æ /. I mention this because it's important to always write phonetic symbols correctly, otherwise they can look like another sound, or something that doesn't exist at all. Unfortunately I had no choice for the heading here, so my apologies for any confusion.
So let's take a closer look at the phonetic symbol / æ /. It may be a bit tricky to write at first, but basically it’s like an ‘a’ linked to ‘e’. We find the sound /æ / in words such as ‘cat’, ‘bat’, ‘at’, ‘and’, ‘can’ & ‘am’:
Cat = / kæt /
Bat = / bæt /
At = / æt /
And = / ænd /
Can = / kæn /
Am = / æm /
The / æ / is a short vowel. To pronounce it correctly, make an open-mouthed smile and focus on producing the sound at the back of your mouth. It should look something like this:
(Image reproduced from BBCLearningEnglish)
If it helps, you can really exaggerate the open-mouthed smile, as that makes it easier to make the sound at the back of your mouth.
To practise the / æ / sound and learn more about it, I recommend watching English Pronunciation – Short Vowel - /æ/ - ‘trap’, ‘stamp’ & ‘back’ - YouTube, which is part of an excellent BBC Learning English course containing all of the sounds in English.
Many English language learners confuse the sound / æ / with the short ‘uh’ sound: / ʌ /. We will come to this next! If you’re finding / æ / difficult to hear or pronounce, I would strongly advise that you keep practising it until you feel fairly confident with at least recognising this sound before moving on to others.
That’s all for this week! If you’ve been following this series, I can now use phonetic symbols to write the following message to you:
/hæv ə ɡʊd ˈwiːˈkend/ !
(Have a good weekend!)
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