The fourth issue of my newsletter deals with the diphthong sound in the word "go."  An update of my recent activities follows below.

The diphthong /oU(/ as in "go"

Diphthongs (pronounced "diff-thongs") are two vowels that are sounded as one syllable.  English uses ten diphthongs, and they may be heard in the following sentences, in which each word contains a different diphthong:  Pay my boy; go now. Here's their poor oar car.  In today's newsletter we'll look at the diphthong / oU(/, as in the word "go".

The / oU(/ diphthong, like all diphthongs, is made up of two sounds, or elements:  the first sound is a pure /o/, as in the French word "beau"; and the second is /U/, as in "put".  The first sound is made by rounding the lips fairly fully, and raising the back of tongue about two thirds of the distance from the bottom of the mouth.  The lips then glide to a more fully rounded position, while the tongue moves up and forward a bit to form the weak second element, /U/as in "put."  As in all diphthongs, the second element should be shorter than the first; this is shown with the shortening symbol (  () over the second element.

It may be helpful to look in a mirror to see your lips moving while you form these two sounds.  You should see them round for the /o/, then round a bit more for the /U/.  Forming this diphthong may feel strenuous at first, but by practicing these motions for a few minutes several times a day, your mouth muscles should soon become very efficient at making the sounds, and you'll be able to form them quickly and easily.  Practice the / oU(/ diphthong in words like:  go, though, know, throw, row, sew, show, flow, don't, photo, bestow, no.

Diphthongs are often changed by people who grew up speaking English as a second language, or by people with a regional American accent.  If you grew up speaking British English (or learned English from a British English speaker,) you may use a variation that is sometimes called a "collegiate o" (it's said to have evolved from the accent heard at Oxford and Cambridge, in England.)  The  "collegiate o" starts with the tongue pushed down and back slightly, while the lips are relaxed.  I've heard this sound while working with people who learned English in France, Italy, Germany, many parts of Asia and India, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and of course, England.  To a speaker of American English, this version will sound more like "ah-oo" or even "eh-oo" if the tongue is pushed forward.  Remember to round the lips quite fully at the beginning of the diphthong to get the American sound.

When native speakers of languages that don't use diphthongs speak English, they tend to pronounce American diphthongs as a single vowel sound.  People who speak French, Spanish, Italian, many Asian languages, Farsi, Irish and some African languages, among others, will tend to reduce the  / oU(/ diphthong to a pure /o/, as in the French word "beau", leaving off the second element entirely.  Actors:  You'll do well to examine the language background of the character you're playing, and look at how diphthongs are treated in their original language.

Americans who grow up in the South often use a slightly different variation of the / oU(/ diphthong, leaving both the tongue and lips relaxed at the beginning.  Try this sound by relaxing your lips and tongue (using the sound "uh,"  or the neutral vowel or "schwa" sound), then rounding your lips and moving your tongue up and back for the second element, /U/as in "put."  Practice your Southern dialect with the sentence, "Go home, you old crow!"  You should hear four of the / oU(/ diphthongs in this sentence.

Recent dialect coaching news:

-- My client, Aaron Fors, who's done dialect roles in The Agency, Death to Smoochy, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and many others, was recently cast as an Australian fish in the new Disney/Pixar animated feature film Finding Nemo.  Aaron auditioned by phone just after we had finished a phone session tuning up his Australian dialect, and was cast ten minutes later!

-- Client Janellen Steininger was cast as a Swiss-German character for Wells Fargo Radio Theater.  I helped Janellen prepare this dialect in fifteen minutes, as part of a program I now offer for actors who need dialects for auditions, but don't want to devote a whole session to learning a dialect for a small role.  For more information, click on Your Personal Dialect Coach.

-- Mike Myers requested some New York dialect exercises that he could use on the set of The Cat in the Hat to supplement the session we'd had together.  I faxed them over in a New York minute.

-- I was recently made Editor-at-Large of IDEA, the excellent on-line archive of dialects from around the world, compiled by Paul Meier at the University of Kansas.  You may find a link to IDEA on my new links page, which also includes links to ESL sites, additional dialect sites, tongue twister collections and more.  Please click on Links.

-- The Multiple Sclerosis Dinner of Champions, which honored Sony chair Sir Howard Stringer raised $3.7 million toward MS research.  I coached actor Tom Arnold to sound like Sir Stringer, a Welshman,  in a tribute film that was shown at the dinner.

Need more information?  Like to suggest a topic for a future newsletter, or offer a correction or response?  Please call or email me, or visit the rest of this site for full details about learning any dialect, including neutral American.