Have you ever wondered ‘what is phonetics’? Have you ever wished that you knew how to
pronounce the English phonetic alphabet more clearly and confidently? Well, in this video,
these are exactly the things that I’m going to help you to do.
So phonetics is essentially the study and classification of speech sounds. And we have
something call the international phonetic alphabet chart, which is an internationally
recognised set of phonetic symbols, that was developed in the late 19th Century. And we
use them to be very specific about the pronunciation of a word in which ever language we’re working
on.
And some people find them to be the most accurate and the most reliable way to work on their
pronunciation because you can go to a good dictionary like the Oxford dictionary or the
Cambridge dictionary (which are both online) and you can see the phonetic symbols and it’ll
tell you how to pronounce that part of that word. So they’re a really great resource.
And what I thought might be useful, even though the internet is filled with videos about this
sort of stuff, is just to sort of contain it all in one video and give you those phonetic
symbols and make the sounds so that you can practice and get more confident with them
and then you can go to a dictionary and if you see that symbol you know which sound to
use. So, here they are.
So we’re going to look at the consonant sounds. And when we’re talking about sounds
in isolation they’re sometimes referred to as phonemes. So here are the phonemes for
each of the consonant sounds in standard British English.
m as in MUM n as in NONE
ŋ as in SONG f as in FOR
v as in VINE s as in SAD
z as in ZEAL ʃ as in SHOE
ʒ as in MEASURE θ as in THING
ð as in THIS t as in TOO
d as in DO k as in KING
g as in GO p as in PUT
b as in BUT w as in WAR
j as in YOUNG r as in RED
dʒ as in JAM, JUDGE tʃ as in CHEW
h as in HOW l as in LEE
ɫ as in FEEL
Here are the vowels:
ɪ as in KIT e as in DRESS
ʌ as in STRUT ʊ as in FOOT
æ as in TRAP ɒ as in LOT
ə as in The Schwa Uː as in GOOSE
ɔː THOUGHT ɜː as in NURSE
ɑː as in BATH iː as in FLEECE
eɪ as in FACE ɑɪ as in PRICE
ɔɪ as in CHOICE əʊ as in GOAT
aʊ as in MOUTH ɪə as in NEAR
eə as in SQUARE ʊə as in CURE
eɪə as in LAYER aɪə as in LIAR
ɔɪə as in LAWYER əʊə as in LOWER
aʊə as in HOUR
So if you want to learn more about vowel and consonant pronunciation in British English
then click here and download to free resources that I’ve created that get to the heart
of some of the most difficult vowel and consonant pronunciation in British English.
But if you would like to continue learning more about phonetics and you really want to
improve all of those vowel and all of those consonants in terms of your English pronunciation,
then why don’t you click here and have a look at a published eBook that was released
last year that I wrote that contains absolutely all of these vowels and all of these consonants
along with the phonetic transcription And it covers absolutely everything you need to
know, with pictures and diagrams, it’s got 12hrs of audio, it takes you through all of
the typical habits and mistakes that people make, and it’s got a huge section on intonation
as well. So with the aid of that book you’ll really get your pronunciation and intonation
improving and you’ll feel much more confident and much more fluent in terms of your speech
in English. So click here and have a look at that know.
Just before you do that however, if you want to find this video again, consider clicking
like. And why not subscribe to this channel because I post weekly videos here every Tuesday
at 8.30pm GMT local London time. So I hope to see you here next week.