Tag: Pronunciation

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English Sounds

English Pronunciation Help for Spanish Speakers #2

Ayuda de pronunciación en inglés para hispanohablantes

/m/ and /n/ – hearing the difference and then pronouncing clearly

/n/ and /ŋ/ – hearing the difference and then pronouncing clearly

English “r”

Listen and repeat the words.

/r/ at the beginning/r/ in the middle/r/ at the end
raceMarchbar
richHarrycar
runAmericafar
Ronfortyjar
rightwordabhor
readimportantactor
rosedirtyteacher
rolllibrarylawyer
roundnorthanchor
rabbitsorryguitar

Word-initial /s/

Listen and repeat the words.

/st/ and /str//sp/ and /spr//sk/ and /skr//sl/ and /sf//sm/ and /sn/
stealspearskisleevesmell
steakspadeskillslabsmall
storespeakscanslowsmart
streetspreescreenslamsneeze
strollsprainscreamsphinxsnip
strongspringscratchspheresneak

Word-final Consonant Clusters

Listen and repeat the words.

giftfastriskwindcreamed
softroasttuskspendcombed
hopedgaspglintFrenchlimp
steppedcuspslantbranchstump

Three ways to pronounce “ed”

Tense / Lax Vowels

/e/ “take” and /ɛ/ “tech”- hearing the difference and then pronouncing clearly

/i/ “meat” and /ɪ/ “mitt” – hearing the difference and then pronouncing clearly

/u/ “pool” and /ʊ/ “pull” – hearing the difference and then pronouncing clearly

Categories
English Sounds

English Pronunciation for Spanish Speakers #1

Ayuda de pronunciación en inglés para hispanohablantes

/b/ and /v/ – hearing the difference and then pronouncing clearly

/p/ vs /b/ at the beginning of a word

Watch this short video about /p/ and /b/ and then listen to see if you can hear the difference. Most of the time the sound you need to focus on is at the beginning of the word, but there are a few exceptions.

/t/ vs /d/ at the beginning of a word

Watch this short video about /t/ and /d/ and then listen to see if you can hear the difference. Most of the time the sound you need to focus on is at the beginning of the word, but there are a few exceptions.

/k/ vs /g/ at the beginning of a word

Watch this short video about /k/ and /g/ and then listen to see if you can hear the difference. Most of the time the sound you need to focus on is at the beginning of the word, but there are a few exceptions.

/ʃ/ and /tʃ/ (“sh” and “ch”)

Listen to see if you can hear the difference between /ʃ/ and /tʃ/. Most of the time the sound you need to focus on is at the beginning of the word, but there are a few exceptions.

/j/ and /dʒ/ (“y” and “j” as in “jet”)

Listen to see if you can hear the difference between /j/ and /dʒ/.

/s/ and /z/

Watch this short video about /s/ and /z/ and then listen to see if you can hear the difference. Most of the time the sound you need to focus on is at the beginning of the word, but there are a few exceptions.
Categories
English Sounds

/ɑ/

To make the /ɑ/ sound, open your mouth quite wide. The tongue touches the inside of the bottom teeth, and the back of the tongue is low in the mouth.

Video Script
To make an /ɑ/ sound, the mouth is quite open. There’s a little bit of rounding in the lips, but not much. Let’s take a look at some examples before a voiceless consonant: gosh Gothic block hock moth watch sauce And before a voiced consonant: lodging audit cause gauze wall flaw long And let’s take a look at some example sentences: Gosh! What modern lodgings! and Don uh, I can’t even say this. Don is a Gothic bog hog. Don’t ask me what that is. I have absolutely no idea. If you like’d some more practice, take a look below the video.
Categories
English Sounds

/æ/

To make an /æ/ sound, open your mouth quite wide. Push the front of your tongue forward and down. The middle and back of the tongue are slightly rounded.

Video Script
To make /æ/ open your mouth wide and keep the front part of your tongue low. Let’s look at some examples. First of all, before a voiceless consonant: bat cap path batch gas laugh pass And before a voiced consonant: handsome lad had bad jazz van badge Just to be clear about this, if I write here another word, listen to how long I say the sound. So I’m going to start by saying this word bad And now I’m going to say this word bat bad bat It’s how long the vowel is that is actually the biggest clue as to what the last letter is. Let’s look at some example sentences: The handsome lad had a bad bat. Did you hear the difference there? If you didn’t, listen again. Sam had a jazz cap in his van. If you’d like’d some more practice, look below the video.
Categories
English Sounds

/ʌ/

To make a /ʌ/ sound, open your mouth and let your tongue lie at the bottom of your mouth.

Video Script
To make an /ʌ/ sound open your mouth fairly wide and let your tongue lie at the bottom of your mouth. Let’s look at some examples: hustle touch stunned bus but enough much And some examples before a voiced consonant: dumb lug dumb dull mud fun plug And some sentences: The hustle and bustle touched the dumb lug. Stunned Russel is numb enough and much dull. If you’d like some more practice, look below the video.
Categories
English Sounds

/ɛ/

To make /ɛ/ raise the front of your tongue towards the front of your mouth. /ɛ/ is shorter when it comes before a voiceless consonant than when it comes before a voiced consonant.

Video Script
To make an /ɛ/ sound, raise the front part of the tongue partway up the mouth. Let’s look at some examples. First, before a voiceless consonant: guess dress bless met left let yes And before a voiced consonant: said head heavy wealthy well men French And let’s look at some example sentences: I guess Ben said his head felt heavy. The wealthy well-dressed men are French. If you’d like some more practice, look below the video.
Categories
English Sounds

/o/

To make /o/ open your mouth fairly wide. Round your lips into the shape of an “o.” This sound is shorter when it comes before a voiceless consonant than when it comes before a voiced consonant.

Video Script
So here we have an IPA symbol it actually looks like what we think it should sound like! Isn’t that nice. Let’s take a look at some examples. First of all, before a voiceless consonant: host ghost oaks moat awoke quote rope And before a voiced consonant: froze so cold toes stove home phone And actually I need to back up for a minute here, because it’s… I said that comes at the end, er, sorry, it comes before voiced consonant. Well wait a minute, there’s no voiced consonant that comes after that. No, there isn’t. But it comes at the end of the word, so it’s still the longer sound, so. Alright, let’s take a look at some example sentences: Our host saw ghost, so he froze. She was so cold that she froze her toes. If you’d like some more practice look below the video.
Categories
English Sounds

/ə/

/ə/ is the most relaxed vowel. Your tongue should be at the bottom of your mouth, relaxed. Relax your lips as well. Your jaw should be in the middle position. /ə/ is often substituted for other vowel sounds when those vowels come in unstressed syllables.

Video Script
/ə/, which is called a schwa, is the most relaxed vowel that we use in English. Open your mouth, relax your tongue, and just let the sound come out. /ə/ One of the things that is hard for people who are learning English is that we often use the /ə/ sound in unstressed syllables, regardless of what the actual letter is. We’ll see lots of examples of that here. Just to be clear which sound we’re looking at, I have underlined where the schwa sound is. Let’s take a look at some examples. We’ll start before a voiceless consonant: Timothy except biggest atomic gallop afraid achieve And we’ll look before a voiced consonant: around anything tomorrow award again alarm ago And again, if you want to, move the video back and just go through those lists again, go through those words again, and you’ll notice that the schwa sound – the part I had underlined – was always in the unstressed syllable. Let’s look at some sentences: Jen can do anything Belinda can do. And let’s just take a look at this for a minute here because we’ve got this word, it appears twice and in both cases, it’s a reduced form. Jen can Jen can do. So if this was a strong version of this word, it would sound like can, but because it’s reduced here, we say can. Tomorrow Timothy will accept the biggest award. If you like some more practice, look below.
Categories
English Sounds

/e/

It looks like one thing, but it sounds like another! To make an /e/ sound, hold the tongue in about the middle of the mouth. It is shorter when in comes before a voiceless consonant than when it comes before a voiced consonant. Some linguists consider this a diphthong since there is a slight raising of the tongue towards the end of the sound.

Video Script
I’m gonna be honest. This is one of the ones that drives me crazy because it looks like one sound and it makes another. The sound that we’re looking at here is /e/ To make an /e/ sound leave your mouth quite open and push your tongue up and back. /e/ Let’s look at some examples. Before a voiceless consonant: hate ate cake lake chafe lace safe. And some examples before a voiced consonant: grey kale wage vein snail pail gave And let’s look at some sentences: Jane hated, but ate, grey cake. That does not sound good… a gray cake. Rachel ate lake snails in vain. If you’d like some more practice with this sound, look below.
Categories
English Sounds

/ʊ/

To make a /ʊ/ sound, round your lips and relax your tongue and mouth. The difference in duration between being followed by a voiced or unvoiced syllable is tiny or non-existent.

Video Script
To make an /ʊ/ sound, leave your lips fairly close together and raise your tongue at the back. Let’s look at some examples before a voiceless consonant: shook push cushion butcher look cookie brook. And some examples where it comes before a voiced consonant: woman sugar wool whole hood wolf would And in some sentences: The woman shook the push cushion. A butcher looked at the sugar cookie. If you’d like some more practice, look below the video.