187: ’Fall’ and ’autumn’

American English Pronunciation Podcast

Seattle Learning Academy

Language Learning, Self-improvement, Education

4.6 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2013

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the US, it's 'fall;' in the UK, it's 'autumn.' Full episode transcripts at www.pronuncian.com/podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi again and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English pronunciation podcast.
0:12.9	My name is Mandy, and this is our 187th episode.
0:18.3	Before I begin, let me remind you that you can find the transcripts for this and all of our
0:24.3	episodes by going to www.pronuncian.com slash podcast. Also, I'll link to the free A.W. Sound lesson, as well as other free lessons associated with this episode from this episode's transcript page.
0:45.9	I really wanted to do a podcast about the word autumn since the days have just turned cool and damp here in Seattle, Washington. We can learn a lot from
0:57.4	the word autumn, like the AW sound, spelled A-U, and the alveolar tap, which probably sounds like a quick
1:06.4	D sound to most of you, and the silent N in words that end in the letters MN.
1:14.0	All of that is in the word autumn, and it is great stuff.
1:19.5	Except a quick bit of research convinced me that most Americans don't use the term
1:24.5	autumn for the season that follows summer.
1:30.4	Instead, most Americans use the term autumn for the season that follows summer. Instead, most Americans use the term fall. Well, what to do, what to do. First, discussing the word fall opens up a place
1:40.0	to discuss the A-L pronunciation, which is also worth mentioning. Then we can still learn
1:47.4	about the word autumn, since all the topics around that word work for other words as well.
1:52.6	Ready? Let's begin with the pronunciation of the vowel sound in the word fall. That vowel sound is the AW sound, which is also the sound in the word dog.
2:07.2	The AW sound is pronounced awe.
2:11.9	Can you hear it in the word fall, awe, fall.
2:19.2	Our AW sound lesson lists quite a few possible spellings for the AW sound, including
2:26.5	AW as in law, the letter O as in dog, a U as in author, A UGH as in daughter, OUGH when it's followed by T as in
2:47.0	brought, and the letter A when it follows W, as in the word want.
2:54.5	The word fall, however, doesn't fit any of those spelling patterns.
3:00.7	I began wondering how common the AW sound is in words like fall, so I got out my frequency dictionary to see if there
3:09.4	was a pattern that I missed. I checked for any word that includes the A-L spelling, and I found
	...

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