American Accent Training for Mastering ‘r’ Vowels

American Accent Training for Mastering ‘r’ Vowels

Learn how to pronounce vowels that are said with the American ‘r’ sound

Hi, it’s Ted here from Speak More Clearly!

Whether you are a non-native English speaker looking to improve your pronunciation or a language enthusiast striving for greater fluency – this free video course is for you.

I’d like to go over the vowels that are said with the American ‘r’ sound. Now maybe some of you are saying – but Ted, the R sound is a consonant so why are you talking about vowels? That’s a good question!

In English when you have a vowel that is written with an ‘r’ we call it a vowel. For example, ‘ar’ and ‘0r’. The first thing you need to do is make sure you’re saying the American ‘r’ sound correctly. 

We have video and audio training on this in our American accent course, as well as detailed training and descriptions of how to say the R vowels that we’ll be talking about today and detailed below.

Here are 6 ways to master ‘r’ vowels in American accent:

Watch the video and practice along with us!

1. How to pronounce ‘er’ /ɝ/ vowels

This is in words such as:

Bird  /bɝːd/ , Heard  /hɪrd/, Search  /sɝːtʃ/, Nurse  /nɝːs/, Hurry  /ˈhɝː.i/, Her  /hɝː/

2. How to pronounce words with shorter ‘er’ /ɚ/

The ‘er’ vowel as you’ve no doubt noticed, has a few different spellings so you need to listen for it. There’s also a shorter ‘er’ /ɚ/ at the end of words in American English. 

This is in words such as:

Water  /ˈwɑː.t̬ɚ/, Father  /ˈfɑː.ðɚ/, Daughter  /ˈdɑː.t̬ɚ/

3. How to pronounce words with ‘or’ and ‘ar’ vowels

‘or’ /ɔːr/ 

This is in words such as:

Form  /fɔːrm/, Horrible  /ˈhɔːr.ə.bəl/, Door  /dɔːr/

‘ar’ /ɑːr/ 

This is in words such as:

Car  /kɑːr/, Parking  /ˈpɑːr.kɪŋ/, Arm  /ɑːrm/, Partition  /pɑːrˈtɪʃ.ən/

4. How to pronounce words with ‘oor’ /ʊr/

 This is in words such as:

Poor  /pʊr/, Obscure  /əbˈskjʊr/, Sure  /ʃʊr/

5. How to pronounce words with ‘ear’ /ɪr/ 

This is in words such as:

Beer  /bɪr/, Clearing  /ˈklɪr.ɪŋ/, Here  /hɪr/, Near  /nɪr/

6. How to pronounce words with ‘air’ /er/ 

This is in words such as:

Pear  /per/, Stare  /ster/, Fare  /fer/, Where  /wer/

By the way, ‘wear’ is said the same way as ‘where’

Now, let’s use ‘r’ vowels in sentences. Practice saying these:

• They stared at the beer before going to the car.
• Nurse Osborne was sure he filled out the form.
• Where is the clear water?

If you found this video helpful, please share it with someone who would benefit from it 🙂

For more American accent training, check out this lesson on how to pronounce English words with the consonant blend /br/.

Speak More Clearly also offers Australian accent training and British accent training courses.