[General] pronunciation

[akiane]

hi! I' m recurrently hammered by the question I quote my students " what's the difference between the vowel sound in ban and that in bun? However hard i tried to explain I don"t seem to be convincing. any help will be welcome.

 

[BobK]

There's a brilliant animated diagram of this somewhere. I'll have a look - but I hope someone else beats me to it...

b

 

[mafto]

Well probably it's no use to explain the sounds by telling them about the tongue position with the 'open-close and front-back' terminology since at first (especially front-back) doesn't come much natural to a learner. But I think you should emphasize that the 'ban' vowel is more opened, it's similar to /e/ but more opened...something between [e] and [a] of some languages. There doesn't seem any [e]-like characteristic to be heard in 'bun' pronounced.
And of course, you should let them hear many example words with those two sounds.

 

[akiane]

:-D
thank you for the brief reply but I doubt if this would be of any help to me. I am eager to konw about the animated diagram you mentioned in your reply. hope you'll find it and let me know about it.