How To: Make the AA sound in American English

Learn how to pronounce the AA sound in American English with this ESL lesson.

The aa sound is a front vowel, which for me means it feels like it comes more from here, aa, than from here, ah. It's a bit difficult to explain, so I am going to explain it in terms of another vowel, and that is the eh as in 'pet' vowel. Both of them, eh, aa, you can see my tongue is up, as opposed to ah, 'father,' where you can see the dark space in my mouth. Aa, all you see is tounge. So it's coming up, and making a bit of a wall, so that you see this part. The way it's different from the eh vowel, which is more like this, eh, aa, is that the tip of the tongue is not touching underneath the teeth as it is in eh. This part of the tounge is a little more veritcal and more spread for me, which feels like it creates more space back here. Aa, aa. Also the jaw has dropped a little bit more than on eh. Aa, aa. And the last subtle change that happens is here. It's easy to see. The lip comes up just a little bit. Pet, pat. Eh, aa, aa. Sample words: habit, understand. Sample sentence: Cameron is mad about fashion.