Lesson 02: Hat and hate, /æ/ and /eɪ/

Teach Me the vowel sounds /æ/ and /eɪ/

The letter A is not pronounced the same way in all words. Sometimes it is pronounced as the short vowel sound /æ/ as in the word hat, and sometimes as the long vowel sound /eɪ/ as in hate. 

Part I 

To pronounce the short vowel sound /æ/ all you have to do is have your mouth wide open and move your jaw and the back of your tongue downwards.

 
Listen to the sound carefully. 


Okay? Now time for practice. Listen again and repeat the sound yourself as many times as necessary for it to sound the same as the one in the recording.

Below you can see three columns with groups of words which may at first glance look similar but are pronounced completely differently. The column in the middle consists of words with the target sound /æ/. Listen and compare with the words on each side. Repeat.

heart - hat - hate 
play - plan - plane
cut - cat - cake
mud - mad - made


Note that when there is an R after the A and the R is not followed by a vowel sound - as in car or arm, then the A is pronounced differently. We'll get back to this bit later on.

Tongue Twister

The fat cat sat on the man's black hat.


Part II

To pronounce the long vowel sound /eɪ/ you must have your mouth wide but partly open and move your jaw and the front of your tongue up.

Listen to the sound carefully. 


Ready? Now time for practice. Listen again and repeat the sound yourself as many times as necessary for it to sound the same as the one in the recording.

The column in the middle consists of words with the target sound /eɪ/. Listen and compare with the words on each side. Then repeat.

tap - tape - ten
hot - hate - heat
man - main - men
eat - ate - at 


Tongue Twister

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.