In my last lesson, I covered the most common sounds the ‘a’ letter and vowel can make. So in this accent reduction audio training lesson, you will learn about when the ‘a’ letter says its letter name – A. In other words, how to tell if ‘a’ should be pronounced as A /eɪ/ as in ‘made’. This is the second most common sound the letter ‘a’ can say.
Accent Reduction- When ‘a’ says A- Audio Training
Accent Reduction- When ‘a’ says A
Luckily there are a couple of rules that can help you tell when the letter ‘a’ says A.
Accent Reduction- When ‘a’ says A
Rule 1
If the ‘a’ letter is at the end of a syllable by itself (not closed in by a consonant), then it can choose to say its name A /eɪ/- it chooses to do this most of the time!
For example, the word baby has 2 syllables – ba by. In this word, the ‘a’ is at the end of the syllable by itself, and so can choose to say its name. (this is the same rule for all single vowels – a, e, i, o, u)
So you just need to break the word into its syllables, and if the ‘a’ is at the end of the syllable by itself it will say ‘A’ most of the time.
Other words like this are: navy, table, able, famous, capable, labour (labor), behaviour (behavior)- be ha viour, courageous, flavour (flavor), crazy, contagious.
Rule 2
This is the ‘bossy e’ rule. When an ‘a’ letter is followed by a consonant and a silent ‘e’, the ‘e’ bosses the ‘a’ to say its name -A.
For example in the following words: make, bake, mate, fade, rate, late, state, statement ( even when you add a common ending such as ‘ment’ and lose the ‘e’, the ‘a’ already says A because of the base word ‘state’), crane, tape, drape, lane.
I hope this has helped make it less confusing. For more accent reduction tips on pronouncing vowels have a look here as well.
Also have a look at my last article on all the different sounds the ‘a’ letter and vowel can say in words.
Best wishes, Esther
