Free English Pronunciation Online Training

This reading passage has many words with "ou" and "ow." Both of these spellings can sound like the double vowel in "ouch." This is a big sound--you need to move your lips and open your jaw. Review the sound with the 500 words list.

Remember: "ow" can sound like a double vowel, as in "down," or just a long O, as in "snow." In this passage, "narrowed" is the only "ow" that has a the long O sound.

My husband and I were looking for a new house in the south part of town. Our real estate agent found thousands of possibilities. We narrowed it down to about fifteen houses. We found a beautiful house with round staircases and a view of the mountains. But the agent said that the power bill was outrageous. We continued to pound the cement for our dream home. For hours we inspected houses and grounds until we almost gave up. Then the agent said, "how about living in the north?" We did not like the sound of that at first, but our agent took us to a house. We were wowed. We only worried about the names of the streets in the county, which came from a Native American language. We had no idea how to stress the words or how to pronounce the vowels.

Online Classes	500 Words Pronunciation	R, Th, T and other sounds	Business Communication
Seattle Classes	Pronunciation Facts	TOEFL Prep	ESL Stories
Sign in	Vowel Sounds	Grammar and Idioms	For Young People

500 Words Extra Practice: the OU/OW Sound