OHw as in 'Go' | Don't Forget the W! (American Accent Training)

If you want to reduce your foreign accent, acquire a more American accent, or sound more natural speaking American English, you need to get comfortable with vowels that have an added /W/ shadow or /Y/ shadow at the end of them. /OH/ is one of the vowels that have a /W/ shadow at the end of them, so it is pronounced like /OH(w)/.

A lot of non-native speakers have a tendency to either not pronounce the /W/ sound at all or make the sound tense, pushing their lips forward. If you want to speak with a clear, natural American accent, you need to practice pronouncing this sound with the W without tensing your lips, keeping them nice and relaxed. The W is short, so you'll also need to lengthen the vowel, making the OHHH part long and slowly rounding your lips into a W right at the end (without pushing them forward).

Why should you care?

Not pronouncing the /W/ sound in words with the /OH(w)/ vowel will reduce the clarity of your speech and make it difficult for you to connect words. It's a crucial part of the vowel in common words like "go", "so", "no", "phone", "home", etc., and skipping the W means not fully pronouncing the vowel in these words. This'll make your speech less clear.

Additionally, in the American accent, we use the W shadow to connect vowels to each other in connected speech. So "going" sounds more like "go-w-ing", and "go around" sounds more like "go-w-around". That W will be your best friend as you work on developing a clear, natural, easy-to-understand accent in American English!

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