Hi there, in this video we are going to be looking at
Phonetics and Pronunciation. I am Colin Munro and this is the English Language Club
So what is Phonetics?
Phonetics is the study of the actual sounds that make up the words of a language.
Every language has its own characteristics and there are sounds in English that you might
not use in your Language, and sounds in your language that we might not use in English.
And one of the more difficult things about English is the spelling and the pronunciation.
We only have 26 letters in the alphabet but modern English uses about 44 different sounds.
So when you look at word, it can be difficult to know, from the spelling, how to pronounce it
because the same letters can be pronounced differently in different words.
Look at these examples. Busy, Word, Queue, Laughter, Comb and Chaos.
All of these words and many more can be difficult to pronounce because spelling in English is
not phonetic and it's often inconsistent. So phonetics gets around this by looking at
the actual sounds that make up a word and not how it is spelt.
This is a chart displaying the phonetic symbols. There are three sections to the chart.
Single Vowel Sounds in Green.
Diphthongs in Red.
Consonant pairs and single consonants in Blue.
We have made additional videos about each
section of the chart, as well as a video with an overall explanation,
which you can view by clicking on theses links.
The key to good pronunciation is to understand
that making the sounds of speech is a physical thing. If you are not accustomed to speaking
English it wont feel natural for you to use your mouth and your tongue in the way that
you need to. So if you want to improve your pronunciation, think about these questions;
Where does each sound comes from?
Is the jaw open or closed?
What shape is the mouth?
Where should the tongue be?
Does air come out of my mouth when i say the sound?
Is it voiced?
Incorrect pronunciation is almost always the
result of trying to produce the sound in a way that is physically incorrect.
If we look at those difficult to pronounce words again.
We can spell them out using the phonetic symbols to see exactly how they are pronounced.
Busy- here we can see that the "u" does not make the sound we might expect.
Instead it makes an /ɪ/ sound.
It is not "boozy" or "buzzy", it's "busy".
Word - the "o" here, together with the "r", is pronounced /ɜ:/ and that's confusing because
that sound if often spelt with "e-r".
"Queue"
this word has a lot more letters than
you might expect and most of them are silent.
"Laughter"
You might expect there to be an "r" in Laughter but there isn't,
also the "f" sound is represented by the letters "gh",
this is a very unusual spelling and causes a lot of confusion.
"Comb"
This word has a "b" at the end but we do not pronounce it.
And finally "Chaos"
This is spelt with a "Ch" and "Ch" is more commonly pronounced /tʃ/ like in Church,
but in Chaos it is /k/ like in cat.
So you can see how there are many inconsistencies in English between spelling and pronunciation.
So phonetics gives us a way to write words as they are pronounced.
We have also made a video summarising the most common errors that people make with pronunciation.
If you are having problems and want to improve why don't you have a look,
you will probably find something that will help you. We talk about Minimal Pairs which are when
two sounds are often confused, like /l/ and /r/
Consonant Clusters this is when there are several consonants together without any vowels
and that produces a sound that can be difficult to produce.
Like "Bl" in "Blend" and "sh" in "Splash"
Homophones are pairs or groups of words that
are pronounced in the same way but different spelling.
Like "too", the adverb, and "two" the number.
Heteronyms are pairs or groups of words that have the same spelling but a different pronunciations.
Like "Excuse" the verb and "Excuse" the noun. The best way to improve your pronunciation
is to talk with someone who will correct you when you make mistakes.
If you don't have someone who you can do this with, you can go to our website and book a class with me
or one of our other teachers. It doesn't matter where in the world you are,
we can study together over Skype. You can also contact us on Twitter and Facebook.
We are here to help you so if you have any questions or comments
or would like to arrange an online class please do get in touch.
Thanks for watching.