基本母音

ɪ, not a short ee. The tongue drops and the mouth goes slack — say ee, then loosen everything. A tense イ turns big into beeg.

æ opens wide and flat, the jaw down and the sound spread, halfway to ah. Open it further than feels right — a timid æ collapses into ɛ (bed) or ʌ (cut).

ɑ is the mouth wide open, tongue low and back, lips unrounded. In American English the letter o is usually this — not a rounded o. Drop the jaw and do not round.

ʊ rounds the lips loosely and lets go at once — short and relaxed, not the long tight u of food. Keep it back and slack.

The schwa is the sound of a syllable with no stress on it — the tongue at rest, saying almost nothing. It hides in the parts of the word you rush past: bəNANə, SOFə, PROBləm.

ɝ is a vowel with the r built in — the tongue bunched or curled from the start. Not 'uh' then 'r' in sequence; one steady r-coloured sound held through the word.