3 Features of Australian Pronunciation

Do you ever feel completely lost when listening to Australians speak?

The Australian accent (and Aussie pronunciation) can be difficult to understand and often leaves many visitors to the country scratching their heads. 

To scratch one’s head is an idiom which means to be confused or to not understand something. 

The Aussie accent can vary  of course, depending on the region or whether you are in the city or a rural area.

There are many aspects to Australian pronunciation but in this video lesson I’m going to focus on three common features. 

THREE FEATURES OF AUSTRALIAN PRONUNCIATION

1. The ‘oh’ sound. /əʊ/
   The ‘oh’ sound is more open and wider than the British and American dialects.
   We drop the draw lower and open the mouth more. The jaw is more relaxed.

For example:

• don’t
• know
• home
• no one
• though
• hopeless
• slow
• lonely

• I don’t know.
• It’s time to go home.
• No one goes there though.
• This is hopelessly slow.
• He seems lonely.

2. The /t/ sound, when it comes between two vowels in a word, sounds like a /d/.

• better
• water
• lot of
• eating
• sit up
• writer

• I feel better today. (bedder)

• He drinks a lot of water. (alodda / wader)

• Sit up while you’re eating. (eading)

• She wants to be a writer. (wriding)

This is also the same for the American accent.

3. The /a/ sound or schwa /Ə/ when a word ends in these vowel sounds:

Note: To make the typical Australian sound like this, the draw drops quite a lot and the mouth is quite wide open.

• a – sofa / area / coma
• re – centre / metre / fire
• or – actor / doctor
• ure – pure / cure / nature
• our –  hour / neighbour / sour
• er – mother / another / letter

• Come and sit on the sofa next to the fire.

• He’s a doctor and part time actor.

• I love the pure air in nature.

• My mother got a letter from her neighbour.