START /ɑː/ “fast” vs NURSE /əː/ “first” Watch Video Lesson
- When practising sounds: - FEEL (what can you feel your muscles doing?) - HEAR (listen to the audio tracks and use the hand-phone to listen to yourself)
You may come up with different ideas to the ones in the boxes. That’s fine! START /ɑː/
NURSE /əː/
Spelling Patterns
FEEL
Usually spelled with the letter “a”: part, can’t, hard
tongue back and down
Not spelled with the letter “a”: heard, first, burn
tongue central
HEAR
lower-pitched when whispered
higher-pitched when whispered
Comparisons
The highlighted words are all minimal pairs. These are words that sound the same apart from one sound. The only difference between card /kɑːd/ and curd /kəːd/ is the vowel sound.
1 ah! /ɑː/ = exclamation used to express diverse emotions including surprise, pleasure, sympathy, and realisation. 2 ugh! /əː/ = exclamation used to express disgust or horror. 3 colonel /kəːnəl/