Phonetics
Phonetics are the sounds of a language.
Not all languages pronounce the same letters the same, or even in the same way.
To master your pronunciation in a foreign language, you have to forget what seems obvious in your own language, vowel sounds can be different, spelling can change the sounds, and in English, we do not have a phonetic spelling, meaning that rough and tough can rhyme, but through and although are two other pronunciations.
This is because over time England was invaded and had many different influences in language and spelling.
To make this less confusing, there is the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA.
This is the chart with the squiggles and symbols you might find in the dictionary. Here is an in depth explanation.
On this page you can find:
- Phonetics explained
- Consonant Sounds
- Vowel Sounds
- When and how to pronounce word endings (-ed, -s)
Manner of Articulation
The manner of articulation refers to HOW sounds are produced.
It is all about controlling air flow in different ways to make sounds, or how you use different parts of the mouth together.
(see places of articulation below)
Place of Articulation
This is the part or parts of the mouth, and what they are called.
All consonant sounds are made by combining the manner and place of articulation. These sounds do not correspond to a specific spelling, letter, or are used equally across languages.
Here is a small guide from learnlanguagesonyourown. They have a very comprehensive guide, but here is a rough demonstration on where parts of the mouth are. For a more detailed version look at their page on places of articulation
IPA
As previously stated, to avoid confusion sounds are referred to by IPA symbols. The following links contain charts with all the IPA symbols used in English.
Click to see Consonant Explanation
Click to see Vowel Explanation
Why use IPA?
Let's take my name: Rachel
My name could be pronounced many ways. The R might be trilled, or a tap, it could be made in the throat like in French. Maybe the A is flat like in apple or cat, or long such as dark or father. The CH could be a CH, SH, K or even a hard KH.
You get the idea.
Because English is not phonetic, and phonetics are not universal, we can use the IPA to note the exact explanation without long explanations.
Rachel = reɪt͡ʃəl
English Word Endings
You may have trouble sometimes when it comes to correctly guessing how to pronounce an English word, especially if it ends in -ed, -es or -ing. Like all English words how it appears to be spelt is not necessarily how to pronounce it.
-ED
Ed endings are using in the regular past tense form, some past participles and some adjectives.
Sometimes it is directly after the final consonant (skipping the e) such as Pictured OR sometimes you say the 'ed' such as in redacted. Sometimes it is pronounced as /t/ and other times it is more of a /d/.
Firstly, lets look at the phonetics.
'Picture' phonetically is pɪkt͡ʃə and 'pictured' is pɪkt͡ʃəd so it is simple as just adding /d/.
'Redact' is rədækt and 'redacted' is rədæktɪd so we have to add ɪd.
Luckily, there are a few rules, and some extra great explanation is available from woodward english here
ED
The best way of describing this is using IPA symbols and understanding the difference between 'voiced' and 'voiceless'
The voice explanation is available on the IPA consonant page.
Wanted, needed, visited, waited, hated, rated, conceited, defeated, devoted, voted, noted, pleaded, threaded, headed.
raised, lazed, played, famed, blamed, seemed, themed, gazed, bridged, edged, hedged.
escaped, flaked, raked, soaked, poked, peeked, tweaked, kicked, picked, mixed.
ing
the ing ending can be found in either the gerund form or for some adjectives.
it is not the same sound as /n/ followed by /g/.
/g/ is pronounced in the velar, or the furthest part back in the palate. In this same space if you make it a nasal sound (blocking the air flow and instead allowing it to escape from the mouth) you get the ng sound /ŋ/
This is also the sound we use when saying words such as 'pink' 'think' and 'drink'.
It sounds awkward to say the /n/ on the alveolar ridge and then move to the velar to produce /g/ or /k/, so we combine them.
S or Z?
The letter /s/ and the letter /z/ are similar, with /s/ being voiceless and /z/ being voiced.
The sound for /s/ can be written in many ways: Snake, Cross, Pence
This makes it really hard to tell the difference just from reading. When there is an s at the end of the word that donates plural on the other hand, it is usually said as /z/.
Zebra uses /z/ at the beginning, but the plural uses it at both ends. Zebras.
Sometimes if the last sound in a singular word is a hard /s/ such as house, both s' become /z/ when pluralised.
haus
hauzɪz
