Soft A Sound
ɑː (arm, father)

English Pronunciation, Lesson 13

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The soft A sound (IPA symbol: ɑː) can be found in English words such as: 
arm, father, part, start, dog, box, clock, on, a lot, not, body.

Click Here for Step-by-Step Rules, Stories and Exercises to Practice All English Tenses

Click Here for Step-by-Step Rules, Stories and Exercises to Practice All Tenses




English soft A sound
Watch the following video to learn how to pronounce this sound correctly:

(Note that in the video the term "soft palate" will be mentioned.
Soft palate means "the soft part at the back of the top of the mouth".)



Have you watched it? Good! Let's practice...

Say these words out loud (the e sound is bold):

1) part

2) start

3) arm

4) on

5) father

6) box

7) clock

8) not

9) top

10) rock

11) body

12) bottom

13) bottle

14) follow

15) document

16) apartment

17) possible

18) mom


Now say these sentences out loud (the e sound is bold):


1) He took a part of the rock.

2) Let's start from the top.

3) An arm is a part of the body.

4) The fox sits on the box.

5) Father has a new clock.

7) She will not follow this dog.

8) The bottom of the document was impossible to understand.

9) My mom has got a new apartment.

10) After I have seen the opera I was in shock!


Have you finished them all? Cool! 

Well done! You have completed the soft A sound lesson.

Let's move on...

Your next lesson: Lesson 14, Long O Sound (boat, know)


List of Lessons

Lesson 01: International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Lesson 02: Word Stress and Syllables

Lesson 03: Long E sound (meet, see)

Lesson 04: Short I Sound (sit, hit)

Lesson 05: UH Sound (put, foot)

Lesson 06: OO Sound (moon, blue)

Lesson 07: Short E sound (pen, bed)

Lesson 08: Schwa Sound (the, about)

Lesson 09: UR Sound (turn, learn)

Lesson 10: OH Sound (four, store)

Lesson 11: Short A Sound (cat, fat)

Lesson 12: UH Sound (but, luck)

Lesson 13: Soft A Sound (arm, father)

Lesson 14: Long O Sound (boat, know)

Lesson 15: Long A Sound (say, pain, make)

Lesson 16: Short O Sound (not, off, socks)

Lesson 17: Diphthong (a combination of two vowel sounds)

Lesson 18: P Sound (cup, punch, pull) and B sound (cub, bunch, bull)

Lesson 19: The Nasal Sounds (M, N, NG)

Lesson 20: F Sound (four, lift, graph, tough) and V Sound (love, knives, grave, vine)

Lesson 21: W Sound (wow, quit, where)

Lesson 22: R Sound (red, sorry, write)

Lesson 23: H Sound (he, behind, who)

Lesson 24: T Sound (top, it, later) and D Sound (do, had, made)

Lesson 25: S Sound (sit, box, cats) and Z Sound (zip, buzz, boys)

Lesson 26: K Sound (kid, talk, black) and G Sound (go, big, dog)

Lesson 27: L Sound: Light L & Dark L (tall, like, English)

Lesson 28: Y Consonant Sound (yes, you, beyond)

Lesson 29: CH Sound (China, century, watch) and J Sound (Germany, educate , judge)

Lesson 30: TH Consonant Sounds – voiced TH sound (the, father, them) and voiceless (unvoiced) TH sound (think, birthday, south)

Lesson 31: SH (shop, chef, special) and ZH (usual, massage, Asia)

Lesson 32: T and TT Sounds (true T sound, D sound, stop sound, silent T)

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