American O Sounds: Casual Practice Conversation

Here’s a fun conversation for practicing intonation and O sounds.

The Caffeine & Code Overflow

Alex: Yo, did you see the latte art at that new spot around the corner? The barista pulled a Rosetta that looked more symmetrical than my last pull request.

Jordan: Honestly, I’m jealous. I tried doing a heart at home this morning and it ended up looking like a blob of legacy code. Just a shapeless mass of “it works, don’t touch it.”

Alex: [Laughs] That’s the struggle. It’s funny, though—I feel the same way about the technical blog I started last week. I spend three hours tweaking the CSS for the code blocks and only ten minutes actually writing the content.

Jordan: Oh, you finally launched it? Nice! What’s the stack? Or let me guess… Hugo or Jekyll because you wanted to “keep it light”?

Alex: Caught me. I went with Astro, actually. I told myself it was for the performance, but really I just wanted an excuse to play with a new framework. It’s the programmer’s curse: why write a blog post when you can spend a weekend over-engineering the platform it sits on?

Jordan: Preach. I have four “Hello World” posts on four different static site generators. It’s basically a digital graveyard. But seriously, are you going the “deep dive tutorial” route or the “here is my opinion on why semi-colons are optional” route?

Alex: A bit of both? I’m trying to document that weird memory leak we found in the production API last month. I figure if I don’t write it down, the next person to hit it is going to suffer as much as we did.

Jordan: That’s noble. Writing is basically just asynchronous debugging for the rest of the world.

Alex: Exactly. Plus, there’s something satisfying about a finished post. It’s like a perfect latte—short, concentrated, and hopefully doesn’t leave a bitter aftertaste.

Jordan: Bold claim. Just make sure you don’t spend so much time on the “About Me” page that the tech stack becomes obsolete before you hit publish. Now, show me a picture of that Rosetta. I need some inspiration for my next foam disaster.

Get Started with English Classes

Improve your English fluency and communication with one-to-one classes. Get a pre- and post- assessment to focus on measurable results. Remember, this month, there’s a great refer-a-friend discount! You’ll both get 2 extra classes when your friend buys a package.

Schedule a Consultation

Short O Words

These words have the /ɑ/ or /ɒ/ sound.

Spot (The coffee shop)
Honestly
Blob (Jordan’s failed latte art)
Blog (the blog Alex started)
Block (The CSS code blocks)
Stop (Wait, don’t touch it!)
Document (Writing down the memory leak)
Not (If I do not write it down…)
Optional (The debate on semi-colons)
Concentrated (about a finished post)
Obsolete (the first O)

The “Open A” sound often overlaps with the “Short O” sound. Linguistically, this is called the Father-Bother merger.

Words with the Open A Sound

Art: (The latte art—this is the most classic example in the text).
Launch
Heart: (Even though it’s spelled with an ‘ea’, it sounds exactly like the ‘a’ in father).

Long O Words

These words have the /oʊ/ sound.

Code (The programmer’s bread and butter)
Yo (Alex’s casual greeting)
Rosetta (The fancy latte art)
Home (Where the foam disasters happen)
Over-engineering (A classic developer hobby)
Post (The blog entry)
No (Actually, “noble”—the first O is long)
Both (The “deep dive” and “opinion” routes)
Noble
Bold

Speak Method Pro