In this English pronunciation tutorial
I'm going to give you, five British consonant sounds
that are essential for speaking English
with a clear and confident British accent.
These five consonant sounds can be especially difficult
for non-native speakers of English,
because you're putting your mouth into positions
that your native language doesn't have,
and also because we're pronouncing sounds
that your native language might have,
but in a very different way in English.
So I'm going to show you step-by-step how to pronounce
each of these five British consonant sounds correctly,
and by the end of this tutorial, you'll feel confident
to use these sounds in your English speaking.
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Let's dive in with the five consonant sounds.
Number five is the English 'R' sound, /r/.
In most languages around the world
when you make the 'R' sound, the tip of your tongue
touches the roof of your mouth.
And in various regional English accents
the tip of the tongue also touches the roof of the mouth.
But in modern-day received pronunciation
which is also sometimes referred to as 'BBC English'
or 'Standard British English'
the tip of the tongue does not touch the roof of the mouth.
And, if you're touching the roof of your mouth
with your tongue, it can change the sound
of your English, when you're speaking
because the 'R' sound is so common in English.
So, the way to make the British 'R' sound
without touching the roof of your mouth
is step one, is to put your lips into a 'W' position
/w/
Step two is to put your tongue back in your mouth
and imagine that you're making it
in the shape of a spoon
/w/
As you pull your tongue back in your mouth
the position of your lips will change
from a rounded position into a bunched-up position.
This is the starting position that we want
to make the 'R' sound in
/r/
And from there, we simply drop our mouth down.
/r/
The number one thing to get this sound correct
is to make sure that the tip of your tongue
is not touching the roof of your mouth.
This is not easy and it will take practice.
And if you want more practice then I've linked
a playlist below for all the sounds
I'm gonna give you in this lesson.
But this is so important, don't let
your tongue touch the roof of your mouth.
The second tip when making this sound is to make sure
that your lips are bunched up enough.
/r/
Okay, so that is the first sound, the 'R' sound.
Do not let your tongue touch the roof of your mouth.
You don't let it touch the roof of your mouth
by pulling your tongue back. Practice this as many times
as you need to, and this will change
the sound of your English completely.
The second British consonant sound
that you can use to speak with a British accent
are the two 'TH' sounds and /θ/, and /ð/.
These are very difficult for most non-native speakers
because in your native language you might not have
any sounds where the tip of your tongue
comes out between your teeth like this /θ/,
or /ð/. The mistakes that most people make
with these two sounds are instead of making a /θ/ sound
they will make either an /s/ or a /t/ sound.
And instead of making a /ð/ sound, they'll make
either a 'Z' /z/ sound or a 'D' sound /d/.
Okay. So how do we make both of these sounds
in three very simple steps? Step one
is to put your tongue out in between your teeth
and just get comfortable doing that.
Step two is to practice breathing out
with your tongue in this position like this:
You do this until you feel comfortable and step three is to
then practice it with your voice box vibrating.
And the final step, once you can do this
with both of these sounds is to then practice
putting different vowel sounds after these two sounds.
For example, if I'm going to say the word 'than'
'more than that,' I'm going to practice putting an /æ/ sound
after the /ð/
'tha'
and then finally, 'than.'
'Than'
So the step from mastering the two 'TH' sounds,
One, tongue out between the teeth.
Two, practice breathing out.
Three, practice your voice vibrating,
whilst breathing out.
And then step four is to practice it
by putting vowel sounds after the TH /ðæ/ /ðɪ/ /ðe/.
And then finally step five, is to practice the whole word
with the 'TH' sound and make sure
that you're not making a 'T' sound an 'S' sound
a 'D' sound or a 'Z' sound instead of
the /θ/ sound and the /ð/ sounds.
The third British consonant sound
that you can use to speak English
with a confident British accent is a group of sounds.
And it's the aspirated plosive sounds 'P,' 'T' and 'K.'
In many languages, these three sounds are unaspirated.
Whereas in English they are aspirated.
What does this mean? An aspirated sound
is made without any voicing in the voice box.
So when I say 'P' 'T' and 'K,' there is no voicing
until the vowel sound that comes after it.
Watch me make these three sounds now.
If I put my hand on my throat and I want you to do this now.
Put your hand on your throat and say
/p/, /t/, /k/.
There should be no vibrations in your throat.
If you're feeling vibrations in your throat,
when you say /p/, /t/ or /k/,
it's going to sound more like /b/, /d/ or /g/
which is then going to sound much more
like a 'B' 'D' or 'G' sound in English.
It's very important that you can get comfortable
making these sounds without any vibrations in your throat.
And then the vibrations only start on the vowel
sounds that come after these three sounds.
So if I say the words 'pan', for example, 'a frying pan'
the voicing is only starting on the vowel sound
that comes afterwards. If I say it really slowly
'Pan'
What you'll hear is that there's no voicing
in the 'P' and then the voicing starts in the a
and it might sound like there's an 'H' sound in there,
when I say it really slowly, p..aen.
And I'm going to get to that in just a moment,
because the 'H' sound is the fourth sound
that we're going to be mastering in
today's British consonant sound tutorial.
If you're finding this tutorial useful so far
then make sure to hit that thumbs up button.
And if you'd like more tutorials like this
to help you speak English with a confident British accent
then make sure to make this channel
your daily English Pronunciation habit.
And you'll be speaking English with clear
and confident pronunciation in no time at all.
So all three sounds unaspirated should sound
like this for /p/ for 'pan,' /t/ for 'tan' and /k/ for 'can.'
Now, at the end of the tutorial
I'm going to give you a very important bonus tip
on how to use these three aspirated sounds
at the end of words, in English, because this is
something that nearly everyone mispronounces in English.
So make sure to watch until the end of the video for that.
Now let's dive in with British consonant sound number four.
The fourth British consonant sound to speak English
with a clear and confident British accent is the 'H' sound.
The 'H' sound in English is a very unusual sound
where it's technically not a consonant
even though it functions as a consonant in the language.
I hear people making different mistakes with the 'H' sound.
Native speakers of certain languages, including French
often drop the 'H' sound in English.
So they would say 'ave' instead of 'have.'
And English speakers from other countries,
for example, Russia or Arabic speaking countries
will often make contact between the tongue
and the roof of the mouth to make the 'H' sound,
which again, doesn't happen in English.
So how do we make the 'H' sound?
It's actually very simple. The 'H' sound
is just simply making a vowel sound
where you start the vowel sound with no voicing,
and then you turn on the voicing
as you make the vowel sound. So if I say
the vowel sound /æ/, for example, apples.
If I say that really slowly
/æ/
I'm starting the vowel sound with voicing,
but if I start airflow coming out in that position
with no voicing in my throat, and then
I turn the voicing on in my throat
by making vibrations. What you'll get is this:
'Ha'
And that turning on of the voicing
in the throat is the British consonant sound H.
So here we go again
'Ha.'
If I now say the word 'happen' or 'happy',
all I'm doing is making less airflow
before I turn on the voicing.
'Happy'
Now a bit quicker,
'Happy'
And even quicker,
'Happy'
So it's very simple. To practice this sound,
All you want to do is go through every
vowel sound in English, start making each
of the vowel sounds without any voicing at all.
So for E would be
/h/
and then just turn on the voicing in your throat. /h/, /h/, 'he.' Okay?
In my Pronunciation Coaching Program,
I train you on each of these vowel sounds
for the 'H' sound step-by-step, and there's a link
to that in the description. If you want to
find out more about my coaching program.
But that is the 'H' sound. Now let's dive into the fifth
and final British consonant sound in English.
The fifth and final British consonant sound
in English is the /ŋ/ sound, that most frequently comes
at the end of words, but you also see it
in the middle of a lot of words too.
The /ŋ/ sound is often mispronounced as a /g/.
And the reason for that is when you see an 'NG' spelling
in English, for example the 'ING'
ending in English
'eating,' 'drinking'.
Most people will pronounce this incorrectly
with a /g/ sound.
In standard modern
British English that sound is pronounced /ŋ/,
where the back of your tongue is
in the same position as the 'G', but the airflow
is coming out of your nose continuously.
/ŋ/
If I just zoom in here and shine a light
on the back of my throat
/ŋ/
'Walking,' 'eating'
you should be able to see that the back of the tongue is in
the same position as the 'K' sound.
And here's the simple way that you can stop this mistake.
All you need to do is stop the tongue
from dropping from the back of the mouth,
whilst you're making airflow. Let me shine the torch
into my mouth again and show you the wrong way,
followed by the right way.
'Walking'
Compared to
'walking.'
If I hold my hand up when I stop airflow;
'walking,'
That's correct compared to 'walking'
where the tongue drops whilst there's
still airflow coming out my mouth and voicing in my throat.
Now I'm about to get onto one of the most important
tips in this video, which is the plosive sounds
at the end of words in English.
But if you want help with any of the five British
consonant sounds that we've looked
at so far here today, then in the description
below is a free course that you can watch right here.
You don't need to sign up to anything,
or put your email address in. You can watch it right here
now, that covers all of these sounds
in much more detail, and also many other consonant sounds
and vowel sounds in English that people really struggle with
and that leaves them feeling unconfident
when they're speaking English.
So if you really want to develop everything
that you've learned so far in this video
I highly recommend watching this playlist next.
And that's really really going to help you
to maximize your confidence in English
and speak with a British accent.
Now, the final bonus tip with the plosive sounds in English.
This applies to all six plosive sounds 0:15:18.650,1193:02:47.295 in English and not just the three
that we've already looked at here today.
All plosive sounds in English are made
at the beginning of the word by doing a three-step process.
One; two articulators in your mouth
come together. For the 'P' sound, it's your lips.
For the 'T' sound, it's your tongue
on the alveolar ridge. For the 'K' sound,
it's the back of your tongue coming up
and touching the back of your mouth up here.
What happens then is step two,
airflow stops and pressure builds up.
And then finally on step three,
you release the articulators and airflow explodes out.
For example, /p/, /t/,
/k/, /g/,
/d/, /b/, okay?
However, there are two mistakes that people make
with these sounds at the end of words.
The first mistake, and I hear this most commonly
in speakers of languages like Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese
and Portuguese, is I often hear consonants being dropped
at the end of words, especially plosive consonants.
So for example, if I say the word 'hat'
which is what I'm not wearing right now
if I say the word 'hat,' I often hear
that being pronounced 'ha' and the 'T' sound is dropped.
Or if I say the word 'around' the 'D' sound is dropped.
So that's the first mistake is not
pronouncing the plosive sound at all.
It's very, very important that you pronounce
sounds where they should be pronounced in English.
Okay? So that's the first thing.
The second mistake that I hear people making,
is they over pronounce the plosive sounds
when they come at the end of words.
So when a plosive sound comes at the end of the word
you only want to do the first two steps in the process.
Step one is you go into position.
Step two is the airflow stops and the pressure builds up.
And then what you don't want to do is step three
where you let airflow explode out.
For example, if I say the word 'hat'
what we don't want to do is say
'ha t'.
Or if I say the word 'help', we don't want to say
'hell p', 'hell p', where we really
let too much airflow come out.
Like we would, if we were doing it
at the beginning of the words. So what do we do instead?
There's two options that are okay, option one is no airflow
comes out once you've gone into position
and the airflow has built up for example, 'ha'.
But the second way, which is my favorite
and really sounds the best, is where
just a tiny, tiny tiny bit of airflow comes out.
For example, 'hat' or this thing here is my 'head'.
Okay. If I say
'help'
a little bit of airflow comes out
but not an explosive amount of air
like it would at the beginning of the words.
Okay. So make sure that you're not dropping
plosive sounds at the end of words,
but also make sure that you're not over pronouncing them
and making them sound like they should sound
at the beginning of a word, because that's different
to how they should sound at the end of the word.
If you found this tutorial useful
go down into the description and watch my playlist
on all of these consonant sounds.
I've also linked one in the description
on common English vowel sounds that caused difficulty
for non-native English speakers.
Everything is there to help you quickly
and easily maximize your confidence in English
so that you can speak with a clear British accent.
So heading to the description now
and I'll see you there in just a second.