Lesson 5 / 22
/ɔː/ — /ɒ/
Listen to each sound, compare mouth positions, and practise from words to sentences.
The reference chart uses British IPA. English RankUp uses American audio and speech recognition, so some vowels have different symbols and pronunciations.
1 / 2
/ɔː/
saw /sɔː/
Mouth and tongue position
Lips slightly rounded, jaw mid-open, tongue back, hold it long.
Word practice
saw
Sentence practice
I saw a bird.
Mouth-position video (British) — BBC Learning English
2 / 2
/ɒ/
hot /hɑt/
Mouth and tongue position
In American English this merges with /ɑː/: mouth wide, tongue back, but kept short.
The symbol /ɒ/ is the British notation. American English merges it into /ɑː/, so hot and car share the same vowel.
Word practice
hot
Sentence practice
The tea is hot.
Mouth-position video (British) — BBC Learning English
Speech recognition is unavailable in this browser. You can still listen and repeat.
The microphone recognizes words and sentences, not individual IPA sounds. Use its result only to check what the recognizer heard.