Words That Start With R
If your first language makes a tongue flick or tap on the roof of your mouth for the R sound, then you are going to be working on the sound of R in English. If you already follow my lessons, Read More …
Category: American Vowels and Consonants
Eligible, Legible, and Illegible
For Arabic speakers, the pronunciation of these 3 words can be confounding. It is a place where the Arabic vowel system and the English vowel system do not match up. I use a multi-step approach to help sort out their sounds. Read More …
Pronouncing the sound /ae/ in English
First, go to the Sounds of Speech website: http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english Find the front vowels, and study the /ae/ sound, noting what the jaw movement and back-of-tongue movement. This sound, /ae/, always occurs in stressed syllables. Then open http://m-w.com Type the word Read More …
Unpredictable Pronunciations of Vowel+R in English
You’ll just have to memorize them…. -ER spelling is pronounced -AIR as in [chair] inherit, inheritance, inherent, whereby, thereby, whereas, error, -ER spelling is pronounced -EAR as in [fear] coherent, coherence, criteria -AR spelling is pronounced -ER as in Read More …
Pronuncing ‘a’ in 500 Common English Words
Learn the pronunciation of the vowel in the stressed syllable, as well as how the ‘a’ in pronounced. I recommend using m-w.com to hear American pronunciation. The following words have at least one ‘a’ that sounds like the vowel in the Read More …
Pronunciation-based Listening Exercises
pronunciation-based listening exercises MINIMAL PAIRS (e.g. bet/bat or very/ferry) 1. Minimal pairs, identification: student sees a written pair; identifies which the teacher (or recording) says 2. Minimal pairs, discrimination: hear two words; tell if they are identical, or a minimal Read More …