The AA-Sound
So the next vowel we will talk about is the AA-sound. For me, it’s easier to remember what sound I am referring to by writing it as the AA-sound over the IPA symbol.
However, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol for this sound is /æ/. Its sound symbol is an ‘a’ and ‘e’ combined and reflects a lowercase ash or æsh. That is the formal name of that symbol.
In General American English and Canadian English, the [æ] sound is the sound in the word ‘BAT’ or ‘MAT’.
SYMBOL
On the IPA vowel chart, it is located on the lower left side.
The Color Vowel® Chart, created by Karen Taylor and Shirley Thompson in 1999, is another visual organizer for spoken English and represents how to learn and think about vowels. It refers to this sound as the ‘BLACK CAT’ sound or the Black vowel. Notice the consistent placement on the lower left corner of each respective chart.
The Color Vowel® Chart, 5th Edition © 2019. ColorVowel.com. Used with Creative Commons licensing (CC BY-NC-ND).
SOUND
So the AA-sound is sometimes referred to as the short-A sound.
The jaw opens a lot for this vowel. We’re getting towards max jaw opening range for this sound.
The tongue tip stays forward, lightly touching the back of the bottom front teeth. The back part of the tongue tenses up slightly. To do this, you can slightly lift the top lip. When focused on this, the tongue tends to tense and lift as well. If you want to as well (and aren’t grossed out by it), you can put your finger along the back of your tongue to feel the pressure.
AA vowel before nasal consonants: M, N, NG
A feature covered by other English accent teachers regarding the AA vowel is how it sounds when it comes before a nasal consonant, like M, N, or NG.
When a vowel comes before a nasal consonant in the same syllable, like in the words ban, windy, and pond, the vowel has a more nasalized quality to it - more air escapes out of the nose than when the vowel is said alone.
This is a normal occurrence that happens because when two sounds occur next to each other, they may influence the way the other sound is pronounced.
When a vowel is followed by a nasal consonant, the muscles in the mouth anticipate that a nasal consonant is coming up next, so the muscles change their placement slightly for the vowel.
For some vowels, you can’t hear the difference, but for the AA vowel, the difference in pronunciation is noticeable.
When AA comes before N or M or NG, like in the words man, hang, or Pam, the back of the tongue will relax just a bit, so that the AA sounds more like AA+uh. AA+uhn, AA+uhn. Man. Hang. Pam.
When AA comes before NG, like in the word rang, the AA vowel sounds changes slightly. It may start like an AA vowel but then transitions slightly as the jaw closes a little more quickly before eventually getting into position for the nasal consonant.
FEATURES
The [æ] sound features are as follows.
Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
The jaw drops more than for the EE-sound, IH-sound, AY-sound, and EH-sound.
Think of it like a gradient of jaw opening. As your jaw drops, the vowel height widens and that has an effect on the So, if you feel comfortable with the vowels so far, start with EE-sound. Open your mouth slightly more for the IH-sound. Open your mouth a little more for the AY sound. Open your mouth slightly more for the EH-sound. Finally, open your mouth even more for the AA-sound. The tongue tip stays forward and down against the floor of the mouth. And with each incremental additional jaw opening, you should feel the tone in your jaw increase.
VISUAL REPRESENTATION
In English, this sound is reflected in spelling in many different ways.
This sound is typically represented by 1 spelling patterns:
a - hat, bat, black, habitat
The reason why I’m especially showing you the different spelling combinations that can create this sound is that there will ALWAYS be exceptions, weird spellings, or other things that impact how reliable the written representation will be.
Like the word ‘plaid’. (which has an ‘ai‘ spelling pattern).
You need to be able to identify the sound; rhyming is an excellent way to match it properly. So, if you are not good already, start practicing rhyming and hearing the sound.
LISTENING
Sometimes, it can sometimes be hard to hear the difference between the EE-sound, the IH-sound, the EH-sound, and the AA-sound for nonnative English speakers. Here’s a list of words to highlight the difference. The words are EXACTLY the same, except one has the EE-vowel, one has the IH-vowel, one has the EH-vowel, and one has the AA-vowel sound.
| EE | IH |
AY | EH | AA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| been | bin | bane | Ben | ban |
| read | rid | raid | red | rad |
| teak | tick | take | tech | tack |
I’m breaking down every single sound down for you so that you can learn how to produce each sound in English accurately. Sometimes, we’ll have easier sounds and sometimes we’ll have harder sounds.
If you’ve grasped this sound, then great! But if you’ve got a tip that might work for others, or you took a while to produce this sound correct but something clicked for you, let me know down below in the comments. My goal is to have a community know what to do when they’re stuck!
