This is the “Sounds American” channel.

In this video we’ll compare two vowel sounds:

/eɪ/ and /æ/

as in the words “made” and “mad”.

In our previous videos we learned how to make them.

Remember the videos for the /eɪ/ sound, as in the word “make” and the /æ/ sound, as in the word “cat”?

The /eɪ/ and the /æ/ may not sound similar, but they have two things in common:

Firstly, most of the time they are spelled the same way.

Second.

These two sounds don’t exist in many languages

and that’s why non-native English speakers often mispronounce them.

In this video we’ll practice the /eɪ/ and the /æ/ in contrasting word pairs.

We believe that this is one of the best ways to improve your pronunciation.

Before we begin, let’s check how well you can differentiate between the /eɪ/ and /æ/ sounds.

You’ll see a pair of words on the screen and hear only one of them pronounced.

For example,

Can you guess what word you heard?

Let’s try a few more word pairs.

Did you notice the pattern?

In these word pairs, the /eɪ/ sound is used in words that end with a silent “e” letter,

and the /æ/ sound is used in closed stressed syllables.

Here are the 2 key distinctions between the /eɪ/ and the /æ/.

First, look at the position of the jaw.

For the /eɪ/ sound, the mouth is partially open.

For the /æ/ sound, the mouth is open very wide.

Second.

Look at the tongue:

For the /eɪ/ sound, the tongue is tensed and raised to the roof of your mouth.

For the /æ/ sound, the tongue is tensed, flat and very low in your mouth.

Let’s pronounce these sounds one after the other:

/eɪ/ - /æ/

/eɪ/ - /æ/

/eɪ/ - /æ/

Now that you’ve reviewed how to make these vowels,

let’s practice pronouncing these sounds in some words.

This is the most important part of your training,

so try to go through as many words as possible.

You’ll see a word on the screen and hear its pronunciation.

After that you’ll have a few seconds to pronounce the word.

[signal prompt to start speaking]

Repeat each word after the speaker,

the first word will have the /eɪ/ vowel sound,

and the second will have the /æ/ vowel sound

Let’s begin!

You're done!

Congratulations!

To check how much you’ve improved, you can do the word pairs test again.

Click this link to go back and compare the results.

Remember, the letter “a” is pronounced as the /eɪ/ sound in open stressed syllables,

as in the word “baby,”

or in words with a silent “e” letter at the end,

as in the word “made”.

In closed stressed syllables,

as in the word “mad,”

the letter “a” is pronounced as the /æ/ sound.

Thanks for watching!

Hope you find it useful.

Stay tuned on our Sounds American channel!