Is found in words such as heart, past, fast, and also before /r/ in words such as start or car.

This vowel sound has more jaw drop than any other sound in English. 

The tongue presses down. 

The tip of the tongue is lightly touching just behind the bottom teeth.

The rest of the mouth has a neutral position.

 

 

 

 

bar          burr                        bath        berth

car           cur                         card         curd

fast          first                        guard      gird

ha            her                         scart        skirt

bard         bird                       far            fir

hard        heard                     hard        herd

heart        hurt                       parse      purse

pass         purse                     past        pursed

barn         burn                      bath        birth

cart           curt                       far           fur

farm          firm                      part         pert

sharper     Sherpa                  bark         berk

blah          blur                       card        Kurd

carve        curve                     dart         dirt

par            purr                       park       perk

shark        shirk                      star         stir

arc              irk                         barbs       burbs

carbs         curbs                   harpies       herpes

parched     perched               parp         perp

quark         quirk                    sarge       surge

tarps           turps

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The easiest way to identify the ɑ: sound is when the a is followed by an "r" in cases like farm, car, hard, are, march, far, arm, garden, 

in where we have to underplace the tongue in the lower teeth.

 

Or in case when we spell it "alm", such as calm, palm.

 

The problem is that we have several words where this sound takes place like  ask, drama, bra, or past.

 

So it is typical to hear this sound in words that spell "ar" "alm" "as" and "ra".