Category: English Sounds

/w/ is made by pushing the lips out and rounding them and then relaxing and dropping the tongue and lower lip. /w/ is voiced. /w/is what we call a semi-vowel, so it’s a bit strange in a couple of ways. We all know what the vowels are right? A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. Well, really, we should also say and sometimes W. I’m not going to talk about it more than that because this is not a linguistics course; this is an ESL video but just understand that /w/ can be a little bit strange. When W is followed by an H some speakers aspirate the H: wheel, wheel. Aspirating the H is much less common than not aspirating it. So, in other words, most English speakers do not say the, the H sound in words that start with WH, so most people would say where; some people say where. Let’s take a look at some examples: would, west, one, why, wagon. Some examples in word-medial position: away, dimwit, always, assuage, unwind. And in word-final position: allow, blue, new, glow, flow. Some example sentences: Warren is always worrying about his wife. Walters wife’s watch was wet. Wendy wept and wailed as she waited for a week. That’s not a very happy sentence, is it? If you’d like some more practice, look below.

Like /m/, /n/ is made by blocking the mouth, but /n/ is made by blocking the mouth with the tongue, not with the lips, so that air is forced out through the nose. /n/ is voiced. Like /m/ it is impossible to shout /n/ sound. Let’s look at some examples. Word-initial /n/: nine, niece, knees, noise, knob. Word-medial: penny, loner, honey, funny, many. And then, word-final: skin, thin, fan, lawn, soon. Now let’s look at some /n/ sounds that are in words that are in sentences. Nora has nine new napkins. A penny saved is a penny earned. Nancy knows buns and honey. If you’d like some more practice, look below.

/m/ is made by closing the mouth so that air is forced through the nose. /m/ is voiced.
Because the mouth is closed, it’s impossible to shout /m/.
When I was young, I had a friend, his name was Martin and sometimes when we were playing outside, we would get separated. When I was looking for him, I would yell, “Martin! Martin!” and I remember getting angry because I couldn’t shout the M sound, so I just started calling him “Artin, Artin.” He understood. Anyway, let’s take a look at some examples.
We’ll start here when the /m/ comes at the beginning of the word: mix, miss, mop, mouth, mull. And now here, word-medial position: famous, coming, tamer, famished, similar. And now here in word- final position: theme, stem, lame, them, jam. Now let’s look at this sound in words in sentences: The moon was gleaming in the month of May. Most people make merry at Christmastime. The man mowed the moist meadow. If you’d like some more practice, look below.

There are two ways to make the /l/ consonant in English. The light L comes at the beginning of words. The tip of the tongue – which is this part – is placed above and behind the front teeth, which we call the Alveolar Ridge, like that. The dark L comes in the middle or at the end of words. The blade of the tongue is placed above and behind the front teeth – the alveolar Ridge – so the blade of the tongue is just behind the tip, so watch my tongue as I say these two words. If I say for example light, light so that /l/ comes at the beginning of the word and so you can’t see the tip of my tongue. Now watch if I say a different word: silly, silly. There when I make the /l/ sound, my tongue is in a different position even though I’m making the same sound. Both the light and the dark /l/ are voiced. Even though there are two ways of making this /l/ sound, don’t worry about it. After a while, you will do it normally and naturally. I’m just putting this here because if you notice that the /l/ sound is made differently, now you’ll understand why. And again, it just depends on where in the word the /l/ sound is. Let’s look at some examples. I’ll start here in word-initial position: lead, lace, lose, lost, love. If you notice, for all of those, you couldn’t see the tip of my tongue because it was behind my teeth. When I look at – when I read the next two lists, see if you can see my tongue. So I’m going to start here with medial. Now remember, these next two lists are dark L. Oh! See what I did there? Very smart, yeah? Silly, jealous, golly, hilly, yellow. There is no real difference in the sound, but my tongue was in a different place because when I said these words you could see the tip of my tongue. Let’s see if that’s also true now when I take a look at the word final-sounds. Heel, kneel, tail, soil, wool. So again you notice there you can see the tip of my tongue because it’s not hiding behind my teeth like it is when the /l/ sound comes at the beginning of the word. Let’s look at some sentences that have /l/ in them. Lily likes to look for lovely little lambs. Sally is pulling that full load to London. Notice how those two L’s end up.. those two sounds end up getting pushed together because of linking, which I’ll talk about in another video. Paul fiddled with the dial while Lance knelt lower. If you had trouble with that one, don’t feel bad because, honestly, when I was practising to make this video, it took me about five times till I could say that correctly! So if you’re having trouble, it’s not just you. /r/ which is one of the sounds that a lot of people in English or a lot of people who are learning English have trouble making /r/ is made by putting the tongue in the middle of the mouth and raising it at the back of the mouth, back here. /r/ is voiced. Here’s a tip that might help some of you. If it helps, great, if it doesn’t don’t worry about it. Start by making an oo and push your tongue back in your mouth. The result should be /r/. Something else actually just before I go ahead here, something else that I used to tell my students was…is the /r/ sounds like an angry dog: /r/ So, if you can make a growling sound like a dog, that’s what the English /r/ sounds like. Even though /l/ and /r/ are interchangeable in many languages – which means we can say one or the other and it doesn’t matter – in English, they are very different sounds, so you have to practise. One of the reasons, though, that people get frustrated with this is that sometimes – even in English – sometimes you can say either one and it doesn’t matter and other times there’s a big difference. So, sometimes people will say a word and people… the English listener will understand and they think, “Okay, I can make this sound” and then they say a different word with the same sound and now people don’t understand. Let’s take a look at what I’m talking about. If I say the word “hurry” now I just said that correctly /r/ if I say the word hurry no problem. you understand me. But I’m going to say it now with the /l/ “Hully, hully.” Wel,l there is no English word that that sounds like, so people will figure out that what you mean is, “hurry hurry.” So in that case, /l/ instead of /r/ is okay … but take a look at this word. Here, if I say this wrong, instead of saying “arrive,” I put an L sound in there, now it sounds like this word. So if we say for example, “I alive at five o’clock,” “You will be alive at five o’clock? Well that’s good news; I hope you’re alive at six o’clock too.” So sometimes even in English we can say one word… or one sound or the other sometimes we can’t and because there is a difference, it’s important that you are able to say this correctly. Okay, let’s take a look at some examples. So we’ll start here with /r/ in word- initial position: rock, rich, raw, raft, ran. Merry… oops! Sorry! Now let’s take a look at word-medial position – it just means in the middle of the word. Merry, mirror, hurry, warrant, worried. And now we will look in word-final position, at the end of the word: door, jeer, our, lure, hair. Okay? Now we’re going to put this sound in some words in sentences. Roses and carnations are my favorite red flowers. Cats purr after Randy strokes their fur. April showers bring May flowers. Because /r/ and /l/ are so difficult for so many people learning English, I’ve added a little extra exercise here. So, I’m going to say these words. I’m going to say word either from this list or word from this list. These words or these lists of words are what we call minimal pairs, which means they sound the same except for one sound. So if we see here, now this one’s easy to understand because it’s the same spelling, here I have an R and here I have an L. Now, the spelling isn’t always the same between the two words but the sound is. So I’m going to say either a word from the list on the left or one from the list on the right, and you note down which one I say and at the end I will tell you. It wouldn’t be very useful if I didn’t tell you, would it? Let’s begin: right, arrive, fry, correct, race, belly, free, lake, splat. Okay, so now I’m going to show you which words I said. The words that just got bolded, those are the words that I said, okay? So I’ve got another list, we’re going to do exactly the same thing. Ready? Here we go: long, lamp, grammar, lighter, lock, lot, play, late, rain. Okay, and once again here are the answers. The words that I said are the words that just got bold. So, if you’d like more practice, look below because I’ve made some more exercises for you.   

/f/ and /V/ are a consonant pair. /f/ is voiceless and /v/ is voiced. The upper teeth rest on the bottom lip and air is pushed out. The sound comes from the friction of the air escaping through the teeth /f/ or, if I use my voice, /v/. Let’s look at some examples. We’ll start by looking at some examples of /f/ in word- initial position: fame, fall, phase, fat, far. Now in word-medial position: duffel, sniffle, coffee, safer, coughing. And finally here in word-final position: thief, half, graph, wife, enough. All right, now we’ll look at some words that have /v/. We’ll start here at the beginning, word-initial: vest, void, vent, vex, verb. Now in word-medial position: raven, even, several, never, severe. And actually, since we’re here, this is one word. If I change the spelling just a little bit, that’s a different word. That E makes a difference. The word here is pronounced severe, which means like very bad, very serious, and this word is sever, which means to cut. Okay, let’s take a look up here, word-position: leave, drive, dove, alive, save. Okay, let’s take a look at some minimal pairs. I will say a word that’s either in this list or in this list. You listen and you decide if I’ve said the word on the left or on the right and in the end, I’ll give you the answers. Let’s begin: leave, fan, feel, serf, vox, vole, veer, belief, prove, halve, right. Now, this one, just since we’re here, this L should be silent. This should be half. This L is pronounced; this is a noun, this is a verb, so we can see that changing from a /f/ sound to a /v/ sound changes the part of speech; two different forms of the same word. Alright, so, I’ll give you the answers. The words that just got bolder are the words that I said. How did you do? If you’d like some more practice, look below.

/θ/ and /ð/ are a consonant pair. /θ/ is voiceless and /ð/ voiced. The top and bottom teeth are brought almost together. The tip of the tongue is placed between the teeth or just behind the teeth – native speakers do this differently, so there is no one right way, as long as you’re making the right sound. The sound comes from the friction of the air escaping between the tongue and the teeth: /θ/ and /ð/. Practice these sounds in a mirror; you should be able to see your tongue between your teeth – not a lot of it, but just a tiny little bit. All right, let’s look at some examples of each of these. I’ll start with /θ/ in word-initial position: thick, thief, thesis, Thursday, thirsty. Now in word-medial position: nothing, lethal, lethargy, mythical, without. And here in word-final position: death, both, paths, tooth, and growth. Okay now let’s look at some words with /ð/. We’ll start in word initial position: them, that, then, this, there. Now in word-medial position: whether, either, or either – you can pronounce it both ways – worthy, mother, leather. And here in word-final position: teeth, soothe, loathe, seethe, writh. Okay, so I’m going to put that there, and I just would like to point something out to you. Okay there’s a list that I would like to show you and that is here. If we look here, we have the voiceless /θ/ and over here we have the voiced /ð/. These words and these changes from from the voiceless to the voiced variant are actually left over from Anglo-Saxon English. In other words, well, sorry, from Anglo-Saxon, which is really before English existed. So if you notice here, we add the the voicing here and here and etc all the way through. What happens is these words, in this list, change from nouns to verbs so bath – so a bath which… I have a bath in my my bathroom. That’s what I have, but what I do, the verb is I bathe. Teeth, we know what teeth are. To teethe, over here, as a verb, is what babies do when their teeth are first growing. “Why is the baby crying all the time?” Well, she’s teething, okay? The teeth are growing in for the first time. So cloth we, we know what cloth is. Clothe is to to put clothes on your body; that’s the verb. Breath is the noun, breathe – this is probably, I’m going to say this is probably the most common of all the ones on this list, even though the, the process is exactly the same in all of them. And then mouth which is what I’m talking with. This is to mouthe which means to when you when you mouthe words you make the actions as though you’re speaking, but you don’t actually say the word. So for example, if I say … I mouthed the word “hello.” I put a set of brackets around this E because it seems to me that that’s becoming much less common. We, we, I hear more and more people mouthing words instead of saying they mouthe words, so probably in another 50 years or so – I’m just making that up, I have no idea when – this will probably be considered completely archaic and that E will probably disappear in all situations. Okay, now there are no minimal pairs here, and so what I have done is I have substituted a common problem that people have, which is /θ/ for /t/. Now, English ears hear the difference, so it’s important that you be able to hear the difference as well, both when you’re listening and when you’re speaking. I’m going to say a word from either one side or the other, and I want you to listen and to decide which word it is that I say. After I’m finished, I will give you the answers. Let’s begin: boat, fort, root, tank, theme, tick, torn, thrash, drill, through. And there’s the answers; those are the words that I just said. How did you do? Okay, thank you very much for your time and attention, and if you’d like some more practice look below.

/ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are paired consonants. /ʃ/ is voiceless and /ʒ/ is voiced. The sides of the tongue touch the insides of the teeth on the sides of the mouth. Lips are rounded – like that – and the sound is made when air is forced through the small gap between the teeth and the tongue. /ʃ/ is the sound that means, “be quiet.” /ʒ/ is quite uncommon in English and it’s actually only used when we’ve borrowed words from other languages, but we’ll talk more about that later. So, let’s take a look at some words with /ʃ/. So we’ll start here, word initial position: she, sheep, shook, shy, sure. Notice that there’s no H there, but it still is a /ʃ/ sound. Now we’ll look at some medial words: mission, nation, ocean, fishing, machine. And finally, some where we hear this sound at the end of the word, in word-final position: dish, rush, cash, wish, and hush. So now let’s take a look at some words with /ʒ/. As I said, there aren’t very many; these are words that we have borrowed into English. So, let’s take a look. As I’m doing this, you can spend some time thinking (and) asking yourself, “Where do these words come from? How did they get into English? What, what language did they come from?” There’s no prize if you have the right answer, but you can feel proud of yourself! All right, we’ll start with when the sound is in word-initial position: Jacques, genre. Now we’ll take a look word medial: leisure, usual, fusion, casual, precision. And then finally here, in word-final position: rouge, garage, beige, prestige, barrage. Can you guess where these words come from? Well, they either come to us from French, or from Latin, through French. So, there aren’t actually any minimal pairs that I could find, so instead of minimal pairs, we’re going to look at a different letter that – or a different sound, rather – that people often have trouble with. So you notice that here, I’ve changed that to red and that’s to highlight the fact that these words, or these sounds, rather, are actually different from the /ʒ/ sound that we were looking at earlier. Alright, so as before, I’m either going to say a word from this list or a word from this list. You listen carefully and you try to tell which one, and at the end I will show you which one that I said. Let’s begin: she, seat, shock, shave, bash, dosh, mosh, shale, sought, scene. Okay, so here are the answers. The words that just got darker are the words that I said. So, how did you do? If you’d like some more practice look below.

This matched pair of consonants is /tʃ/ and /dʒ/. /tʃ/ is voiceless and /dʒ/is voiced. /tʃ/ and… sorry! CH and J and G are the most common ways to write these sounds – but not the only ways. The tip of the tongue touches behind the top teeth. When air is forced out, the tongue slides forwards. The release of air is what makes the sound. Let’s look at some examples. So we’ll start here with the examples in word-initial position: chess, chime, chest, chase, cheque. Next, our word- medial list. Notice that the spelling is different here; we don’t see a CH. Creature, natural, nurture. Okay well there’s two CH’s coming up – teacher, searcher. And in word final position: peach, ouch, couch, touch, rich. Alright and let’s look at some /dʒ/ sounds. So here we go…word-initial position: jade, joy, June, job, join. Word-medial: Roger, lodger, wages, hedges, edging. And here in word- final position: ridge, badge, nudge, bridge, dirge. Are you ready to see if you can tell the difference? I hope so ’cause I’m going to ask you now. I’m going to say the words… a word either from this list or from this list. Listen carefully so you can decide which words I’m saying: chest, gyp, Jill, cheap, ridge, cheer. I want to say that one again: cheer, March, jive, bodge, jug. Okay, the word that I just said I’m going to make bold. There we go, that’s what I said. So, how did you do? If you’d like some more practice. look below.

/k/ and /g/ are a matched pair. /k/ is voiceless and /g/ is voiced. The tongue is raised at the back of the mouth. The sound is made when air forces the tongue down and the air is allowed to come out. Let’s look at some examples. We’ll start with the list here; word initial position: key, came, keel, cow, coil. Now we’ll take a look at medial: tickle, sickle, checker, looking, beaker. And now let’s take a look at this list: lick, neck, black, hack, like. Okay and now let’s practise some /g/ sounds. So start here of course: geese, guy, gear, gown, good. Medial: soggy, logger, hugging, bagging, ragged. And some in word final position: fig, hug, bog, rug, wig. Okay, let’s see how good your ear is at hearing the difference. I will say one of these words either (the) word on this side or (the) word on this side. You listen and remember which word it is that I say: glam, cape, card, crate, glass, sag, huck, dig, sick, lag. Okay, here’s the answers, so you can see how you did. The words that I said just became bolded How did you do? If you want some more practice, look below.