Lessons Unit 1, lesson 14
aʊ as in cow
One long vowel, on its own page. The ː mark means hold it — hear it alone, then in the words, then say them yourself.
What do the marks mean?
Want the full walkthrough? Read the map explains every mark, with practice.
aʊthe ow in cow
Open on ah and glide to oo, rounding your lips as you go: cow, now, house.
Now say it yourself
Read each word from its sheet, out loud, three times. Where there's a play button, listen first and copy what you hear. Slow is fine — speaking clearly matters more than speaking fast. Tap a word's microphone to record yourself and see which sounds landed.
Check your pronunciation, on this device. The first use downloads a small AI listener (about 40 MB, one time, then it's cached). Your voice is analyzed here in your browser — it never leaves your device.
Don't drop the glide
This vowel starts open, like ah, and ends with rounded lips, like oo. Learners often shorten it into a single flat vowel, so cow comes out sounding like "caa". Make sure your lips actively round at the end — you should feel them move.
Where this spelling appears
Look for ow (cow, now, how, down, town, owl) and ou (house, out, loud, about). Both spellings are common, and only context tells you whether ow means this glide or the different one you'll meet in the next lesson — compare cow with low.
A quick self-test
Say house slowly and check that your lips end up rounded and nearly closed, not still open the way they start. Then compare now with no — now should glide from an open jaw through to a rounded finish, while no starts already rounded and just holds there. If the two sound the same to you, you're probably skipping the first half of the glide in now.