By Olga Smith
In this blog post, we will share with you great tips for the English/w/ sound as in "wine" and how to avoid mistakes associated with this sound. It is based on 25 years of teaching elocution lessons in drama schools and accent eradication to foreign professionals.
Why the /w/ sound is difficult?
Many people begin to learn English when they are adults. They may not automatically position their speech organs as native English speakers will. Moreover, they often don’t know how to correctly position their speech organs in order to produce clear English sounds, because not all English sounds exist in other languages.
The main difficulty with the /w/ sound is that it does not exist in some other languages and students substitute it with the /v/ sound as in "vodka".
Another common mistake is that students lip muscles are not strong enough and they pronounce a wobbly /w/ which lacks clarity and energy.
When I was taking elocution lessons it took me about six months to train my lips so that I can pronounce the /w/ sound. Training our speech organ muscles is similar to training other body muscles, it takes time and regular repetition.
Speech organs position for the English /w/ sound:
Start with the lips forward, as in [u] “boot”, then immediately pull the lips back sharply to the neutral [ə] schwa position. Make sure to vocalise the sound.
We recommend the following muscular exercises to master the /w/ sound:
Instructions: All exercises to be repeated 4 times.
1. With teeth closed, spread lips back to a broad smile, and then bring forward to a tight [uː] position as in “June”.
2. Repeat exercise 1, but with jaw open about 2.5 cm.
Follow up with rhythmic exercises:
Repeat once from left to right:
w w w w
ww ww ww w
www www www w
wwww wwww wwww w
We recommend that you start using the /w/ sound with a few words, for example:
weather, one, when, will want, world, worm, which.
Then you can practise the sound with sentences and verses.
You can find these exercises in our apps and books Get Rid of your Accent, Elocution lessons and Business English Speech. To get the best results with these apps, download the video courses Get Rid of your Accent Part 1.