today's question is how do I pronounce the word vote or to indicate your choice

and what which is a question word many of my students confuse V and W and I

think that's really at the heart of the problem with these two words we also

have some vowel confusion which we are going to talk about so let's go ahead

and jump right in okay so again we have the words vote and what so what we're

going to do first is we are going to focus on the V versus the W okay so for

the V sound what you need to think about is gently biting the bottom lip you can

either do that inside of the lip or outside vvv or vvv that is going to help the air

move out of the mouth you do not want to close the lips and say b and you also

do not want to pucker the lips because if you pucker the lips you will say www

so again let's take a look at these two we have www with rounded lips and vvv with

slightly open lips and again you're gonna bite the inside of the lip or the

outside of the lip to make that sound do not close your lips and you want to

make sure for both of these sounds the air keeps moving out so again and okay

now for the word vote what we're going to do next is we're going to move to

that long o sound and you can see my mouth moves ooo so we're gonna move

from an oval mouth which is gonna help your tongue get low in your mouth the

tip of your tongue will be low and the back will be pulled up slightly o and

then we're going to pucker for the uh vowel this is very short and the mouth is very

relaxed uh I think some of the confusion here is that because people

round for this w www they round a little too much for that short u sound

that should be very very relaxed and when you round for that short u sound

it's going to sound more like an o and then for both of these words we're going

to end with t by touching the tip of the tongue to the back of the top front

teeth now what I do when I say these words vote and what is I just hold the

tongue there and they don't let the air explode out if you say vote and what

with an extra explosion everyone's still going to understand you so that is your

choice okay so let's try this word vote vote vote vote and what what what so we

have vote and what vote what what shall we vote on first give it a try I know

people are going to notice the difference we would love a like a share

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comm thanks so much and I hope to see you again soon