PRONOUNCING ENGLISH VOWELS

Vowels are letters that are pronounced by forcing air over your vocal cords through your mouth. It is the shape of your mouth that decides which vowel sound comes out. There are many tape or video cassette lessons available from schools, libraries and stores which will help you with your pronunciation. You can also learn a lot by listening to the radio and watching television and films.

Information taken from the web page: http://www.englishlanguageguide.com/english/pronunciation/vowels.asp

PRONOUNCING ENGLISH CONSONANTS

Consonant Sounds are produced by completely or partially stopping the breath. Consonant Sounds can be voiceless (VL, no vibration of the vocal cords) or voiced (VD, vibration of the vocal cords) and often come in sound pairs.

Information taken from the web page: http://www.englishlanguageguide.com/english/pronunciation/consonants.asp

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Here is a chart with all the English consonant and vowel sounds so you can practice them.

*Chart taken from the web page http://club.telepolis.com/phonetics/tablea.html

Exercise - Odd word out - Phonetics

Read the following groups of words. Which word in each group has a different sound? - Fill in the blanks in the following exercise with them:

- time - pattern - castle - spelt

- wears - does - loves - knocks

- stayed - looked - pulled - weighed

- look - good - blood - foot

- dead - mean - bread - head

- rented - landed - assisted - opened

- thought - around - sound - house

- York - born - Ford - Oxford

- lives - reads - writes - begs

- kissed - smiled - studied - agreed

- day - days - say - says

- agrees - makes - stops - cooks

- though - brought - ought - thought

- night - fifth - sight - climb

- museum - use - music - busy

- moon - food - foot - poodle

- jeans - steak - sea - weak

- studies - runs - wishes - goes

- played - helped - laughed - walked

- beard - dear - heard - hear

- lion - million - billion - millionaire

- personal - personality - reality - Italian

- fruit - suit - juice - built

- horse - history - story - cord

- arrived - lived - needed - joined

- asks - rubs - sails - rains

- wanted - depended - watched - waited

- country - young - youth - couple

- daughter - fault - cause - aunt

- chalk - wall - calm - talk

- heart - earth - heard - search

- marry - dance - hand - sat

- worry - horror - terror - mirror

- piece - ladies - niece - field

- half - have - has - ham

- oven - colour - son - gone

- hotel - hot - hotter - pot

- books - rose - same - kisses

- cheese - achieve - ache - beach

- soldier - drive - dry - sound

*Exercise taken from the web page http://club.telepolis.com/phonetics/afoneticodda.html

Hello guys! I leave you hear a video which was

downloaded from youtube, so you can watch

and hear the phonemes of American English

and practice these sounds!!

The sounds of English and the International Phonetic Alphabet

This chart contains all the sounds (phonemes) used in the English language. For each sound, it gives:

· The symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as used in phonetic transcriptions in modern dictionaries for English learners — that is, in A. C. Gimson's phonemic system with a few additional symbols.

The chart represents British and American phonemes with one symbol. One symbol can mean two different phonemes in American and British English.

· Two English words which use the sound. The underline shows where the sound is

heard.

VOWELS

IPA	words
	cup, luck
a	arm, father
æ	cat, black
	met, bed
	away,cinema
	turn, learn
	hit, sitting
	see, heat
	hot, rock
	call, four
	put, could
	blue, food
	five, eye
	now, out
	say, eight
	go, home
	boy, join
	where, air
	near, here
	pure, tourist

CONSONANTS

IPA	words
	bad, lab
	did, lady
	find, if
	give, flag
	how, hello
	yes, yellow
	cat, back
	leg, little
	man, lemon
	no, ten
	sing, finger
	pet, map
	red, try
	sun, miss
	she, crash
	tea, getting
	check, church
	think, both
	this, mother
	voice, five
	wet, window
	zoo, lazy
	pleasure, vision
	just, large

SPECIAL SYMBOLS

This information was taken from: http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm