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

My name is Mandy, and this is our 208th episode.

Today I want to talk about something that is definitely more important for American English than British English.

And that's the difference between the OR sound or and the long O sound, O.

I want to thank Christopher, a native Korean speaker, for bringing this topic to my attention.

If you learned British English, you probably learned to not really say the R part of the

OR sound, except in specific circumstances when other vowels are involved.

To American ears, not including the R makes words like corn sound like cone or court sound like coat. Can you hear the

problem? In American English, we include the R sound in all four R-controlled vowels. These are

schwa plus R, er, as in the word stir, the A-R sound,

R, as in the word star, the A-I-R sound, air, as in stare, and the OR sound, or as in store.

Let's talk about how exactly the OR sound and long O sound are alike and different, except for the obvious necessity of the

R sound and the O-R sound in American English.

The long O is what we call a two-sound vowel, or diphthong.

Two sound vowels, like their name implies, include two sounds in their pronunciation.

The long O begins with a sound like a, and then moves into a W sound, O.

If your lips don't close into the small circle that creates the W sound at the end of the long

O, you stand a good chance of being misunderstood.

Say the long O sound after me.

O.

O.

Let's say some long O words.

...