Hi again and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.

My name is Mandy, and this is our 149th episode.

Since we had such a good response from the paragraph practice for the TH sounds in our last

episode, I decided to do it again this week to practice the V sound and W sound.

The most difficult thing about these sounds is that most non-native speakers don't realize how subtle they are.

This subtlety is why it's really easy for native English speakers to think you said the

opposite sound. Before I explain, let me remind you that you can find the transcripts for this show

by going to www.prenuncian.com

slash podcast and clicking episode 149.

I will also link to the free pronunciation lessons that are associated with this show from

this show's transcripts page.

For additional pronunciation practice, joinproniscion.com.

Members receive full access to all of our exercises, quizzes, and videos.

Now let's talk about the V sound and the W sound. Both of these sounds

are articulated using the lips and both sounds are voiced, meaning that the vocal cords

vibrate during the sound. When I create the W sound, ooh, my lips are brought together enough to cause a vibration when the air passes between them.

My lips don't need to be in a really tight circle, just enough to make them tickle a little

bit equally on the top and bottom lip.

The key is that the lips are both vibrating the same amount.

The V sound, on the other hand, only requires my bottom lip to vibrate.

This vibration happens when I tip the bottom lip inward toward the bottom of my top

front teeth. Yes, I know that is a lot of prepositions to describe the position of my bottom

...