Video Text:

The [æ] 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 [e] 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 tongue. 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 tongue is a little more vertical 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. Pets, pats.

[æ]是一个前元音,它和[e]音的共同特点是发音时舌头要抬起,这和发father中的[a:]音不同。发[a:]音时可以看见口腔中的黑影部分,但是发[æ]时只能看见舌头。因为舌头抬起形成了一座“墙”。

[æ]与[e]不同之处在于:发[e]时舌尖触及下面的牙齿,但是发[æ]时并不触及;发[æ]时舌根部分更加垂直、更加舒展,感觉在后部制造出了更多空间;另外发[æ]时下巴下移的位置要比发[e]时更多一点,而上嘴唇则要比发[e]时上移得更多。

Sample words:

habit 习惯

understand 理解

Sample sentence:

Cameron is mad about fashion. 卡梅隆痴迷于时尚。