Today I want to talk to you about the word ‘toward’, ‘toward’. There are actually three different ways to say this word: with a schwa and a W – ‘t-ward’; without a schwa – ‘tward’; without a W – ‘tord’. And that’s how I like to pronounce it because it’s the easiest pronunciation.

All right. ‘tord’. We begin with a T sound. And since it’s the beginning, it’s a strong aspirated T, so it feels like there is a little H after. And then it’s the ‘or’ as in ‘four’ – ‘tor-‘. Now, the ‘or’ vowel is a diphthong. So, you round your lips, drop your jaw, and the back of the tongue rises up – ‘to-‘. And only then you start to close your jaw and lift the tongue up for the R – ‘tord’, ‘tord’. If you don’t allow the vowel to be before raising the tongue up for the R – ‘tor-‘, then it’s going to sound like ‘tur’, ‘turd’. And you don’t want it to sound like turd. All right? So, ‘tor-‘, and then you bring the tongue up for the D – ‘tord’.

Now, you can also say ‘tordz’, and then you just add a little Z sound at the end – towards [‘tordz’], but in American English to the word “toward” is more common. “I walked toward the door”. Toward.

All right, that’s it. Come on over to my website to check it out and get more great content every single week.