Phonetics

[Anonymous]

I was looking at this book from an American English course and it stated that the /a/ in 'calm' is pronounced exactly the same as the /o/ in 'hot'.

I learnt British English once, which reflects in my accent, (my first language is Brazilian Portuguese, by the way) and I would have thought of those two vowels as being pronounced quite differently.

Would you say that its the way those words are generally pronounced in the US or would that be typical of a particular region ?

Cheers,
Kleber

[RonBee]

I was looking at this book from an American English course and it stated that the /a/ in 'calm' is pronounced exactly the same as the /o/ in 'hot'.

Not the way I pronounce it it isn't.

[dduck]

From what I've heard from TV, some Americans pronounce the 'l' softly, whereas in British English the 'l' is completely silent. I can hear a slightly different vowel sound, but without some serious research I couldn't say how many Americans make what vowel sound.

Iain

[Tdol]

The 'l' is silent in BE- we say 'carm'.