Hello. This video is about R controlled vowels. R controlled vowels are very rare; they only occur in about 1% of languages in the world. English – North American English – is one of them. If you speak Mandarin Chinese: good news! You do this in your language as well. If not, sorry guys, we’ve got something new to look at here. Let’s let’s get started. So first of all, this is sometimes called the “Bossy R” and the reason for that is because the R changes the vowel – changes the vowel sound – that comes before it. The /r/ and the vowel that come first get so close that it’s hard to tell them apart, okay? So the R blends with the vowel that comes before it. So let’s just take a look at the words that I’ve got on the screen here. Do you see any R controlled vowels? Now there’s the first one, or, or. Now where does the O end and the /r/ begin? It’s really hard to tell, isn’t it? Before, or, right? So they they blend together quite closely. There are three more. I’ll give you a moment to find them. I’ll give you a hint: every time you see an R that comes after a vowel, that vowel is controlled by the R. er- first, ar- hard, and the same sound in a different word: ar – apart. Okay, let’s get going. The first one that we’re going to look at is what we just saw in those examples: ar – so let’s take a look before a voiceless consonant: remark dark heart stark market park cart, and now we’ll take a look at some before a voiced consonant: yard large farmer guard hard card bard, and now let’s take a look at some in sentences. The market yard was large. After the farmers remark, it was hard to part. The next one is an ER sound. Let’s take a look at some before a voiceless consonant: work murky church irked lurk dirt earth, and before a voiced consonant: bird worm herder word urge fir curb. Now you noticed that fir – nothing comes after that, but when a sound like this comes at the end of a word, it stretches out just as though there were a voiced consonant, so that’s why that is there. Let’s take a look at some sentences: The dirty bird ate the murky worm. In Scotland, a church is called a kirk, sir. Now let’s take a look at or. First of all, before a voiceless consonant: north cork fort short horse course port, and then before voiced consonant: horn torn corn cord form floor store, and we’ll look in some sentences: The horse from the north sorry, I’ll start again: The horse from the north fort ate the corn. The corn is on the floor, of course. And one more here: air. air appears at the end of words or followed by voiced sounds. America carry there fair where glare prepare. There was bear hair on the chair. Jerry was scared to climb the stairs at the fair. Okay, so that’s all. If you’d like some practice, look below the video because I’ve set up some speaking exercises for you. Have a good day!