Lessons Unit 1, lesson 15
oʊ as in boat
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.
oʊthe o in boat
Start on o and glide to oo: boat, go, home. The American o always has this little glide — a flat, unmoving o sounds foreign.
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.
Why a flat o sounds foreign
In many languages, a single letter o is a flat, unmoving vowel. In American English it almost never is — this vowel glides from a rounded o toward oo, and skipping that glide is one of the clearest markers of a foreign accent. Say go and feel your lips tighten and round further as the sound finishes.
Spelling map
This vowel shows up as oa (boat, oak, oat), silent-e o_e (home), ow at the end of a word (show, row), and plain o in short open syllables (go, no, so, toe). Note the overlap with the ow spelling from the previous lesson's cow — here it means this glide instead, so you have to learn which words use which.
Quick check
Say go twice, but the second time freeze your lips halfway through — you should hear the difference immediately, because the real vowel needs that final tightening. Try home and hum the same way; home should rise and round at the end, while hum stays flat and unmoving.