To make /o/ open your mouth fairly wide. Round your lips into the shape of an “o.” This sound is shorter when it comes before a voiceless consonant than when it comes before a voiced consonant.
So here we have an IPA symbol it actually looks like what we think it should sound like! Isn’t that nice. Let’s take a look at some examples. First of all, before a voiceless consonant: host ghost oaks moat awoke quote rope And before a voiced consonant: froze so cold toes stove home phone And actually I need to back up for a minute here, because it’s… I said that comes at the end, er, sorry, it comes before voiced consonant. Well wait a minute, there’s no voiced consonant that comes after that. No, there isn’t. But it comes at the end of the word, so it’s still the longer sound, so. Alright, let’s take a look at some example sentences: Our host saw ghost, so he froze. She was so cold that she froze her toes. If you’d like some more practice look below the video.