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

My name is Mandy and this is our 182nd episode.

This episode is sponsored by Pauline Midwinter of Midwinter Tuition.

You can download her Android app,

listen to her Elocution Podcast, or contact her for online lessons at

midwintertuition.co.uk.

As always, I'll link to the related free pronunciation lessons that are associated with this

episode from this episode's transcript page. Just go to www.prenuncian.com slash podcast and click episode 182.

On and off. These two tiny little words have been a part of English since the days of Old English.

They're both very high frequency words,

and they happen to be nice examples of comparing the short O sound and the AW sound, ah and awe.

Do you hear the difference between the vowel sounds in the words on and off?

On, off.

Because the American accent I use is not from an area of the country that has merged

the short O and A.W. sound into a single sound, I do say these vowels differently. However,

some parts of the United States have gone through a process called the C Kot Kot merger by linguists. People from

those places do not say these vowel sounds differently. Those individuals usually use the

short O sound for both sounds. Currently, about 60% of Americans still do say the sounds differently, and so I teach my students

to hear and produce the difference between the sounds so they can choose for themselves

whether they would prefer to use one or both sounds in their own speech. It really is your

own choice. There isn't a right or wrong answer to this one. The short O is pronounced

ah. It's a low back vowel. This means that the back of the tongue is kept low. You'll feel your

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