The sounds of in "hoot" and "hood"

We make the sound in "hoot" (/u/) with our really rounded. Sing "ooh, baby, baby" or pretend you are going to kiss someone.

Here is a picture of
someone making this sound.
See how round her lips are.

See here that when she says "hood", her lips are more relaxed.

Now let's listen to some sounds!

"hoot" sounds:

• who'd
  
• pool
  
• Luke
  

"hood" sounds:

• hood
  
• pull
  
• look

The sounds in "hot" and "hat"

We make the sound in "hot" (/a/) with our mouth open the widest. Pretend you are going to the doctor and saying "ahhhhhhhh".

See how open your
mouth is and how
far back your tongue is.

These two video clips also show the /a/ sound. Clicking on the links below will download the video clips and launch a separate viewer so you can watch them (MPEG file format).

• 'Bob' video clip (200K)
• 'mom' video clip (200K)
  

The sound in "hat" is made with your mouth open not as wide and the sound is not as far back in your throat. Pretend someone is choking you. The sound you will make is this "hat" vowel.

Now let's listen to some sounds!

"hat" sounds: hat lack mat sap

"hot" sounds: hot lock Mott's sop

The sounds in "head" and "hate"

We make the sound in "head" with our mouth open wider than for /i/ or /I/ and our tongues not as close to the top of our mouths.

The sound in "hate" is actually a dipthong, which means it is a combination of the sounds /e/ and /I/. You can feel your tongue moving closer to the roof of your mouth when you say it.

Now let's listen to some sounds!

"head" sounds: head shepherd leg met

"hate" sounds: hate shape lake mate

The sounds in "heed" and "hid"

We make the sound in "heed" (/i/) with our tongue very close to the top of our mouth. We also spread our lips so it looks like we are smiling.
You can see how Laurie looks like she is smiling when she says /i/ in the picture.

Here is a video clip of this same vowel sound. Notice how the speaker looks like she is smiling when she says 'read.' (These videos will launch a separate video viewer to play them. Make sure you have a plug-in for video clips.)

• 'read' video clip (300 K MPEG file)
  

When we make the sound in "hid" (/I/), we don't look as much like we are smiling, and our tongues are lower in our mouths. Here is a picture of our mouths so that you can compare where the tongue is for these two sounds.

Now let's listen to some sounds!

/i/ sounds:	/I/ sounds:
meat sheep leak	mitt ship lick