Say Aaaaaah!

Listen to the sound represented by the letter a in the following French and English words.  Notice that even though the words are similar, the sound is somewhat different.  In some, the English sound is a bit higher and more fronted than the French sound and in others, it's lower and further back. In English, the [a] in unstressed syllables is also reduced. French, on the other hand, has only one sound. Notice the difference and practice it until you can hear the difference and can produce the French [a] without applying English rules.