We may not say this sound often but when we do, it is commonly mispronounced. If your goal is to speak English 100% better so that you can sound natural (and with confidence!) learn how to say this awkward sound with preciSIon. Hint: it’s in that word….
The English spelling system has 5 letters that represent the vowels A-E-I-O-U (and sometimes Y), but when talking, these vowels have at least 20-different vowel sounds!
Pronouncing English vowels are defined by changes made with the tongue, the degree of muscle tension (tense or relaxed), and lip movements. These tiny little changes make a BIG difference successfully communicating your intended words. For example, the comparisons below show that if you try to pronounce a word with one vowel sound, ex: head, but pronounce the word with a different sound, the desired word may sound more like ‘had’, ‘hat’, or ‘hot’. This week’s podcast will help you hear the differences and give you words to practice saying the differences.
Listen to Ep. 26 Pronouncing English With Pam Podcast
/ɛ/ This is a relaxed sound. Our mouth is open slightly, lips are neutral.
pen, men, slept, head, better
/æ/ tense sound (mouth open). lips are back slightly.
fast, had, slap, clap, man, pan, Pam
/ɑ/ tense sound (mouth is open the most), lips are forward a little or neutral.
stop, daughter, fought
Can you say these two words differently?
/ɛ/ – /æ/
head -had
men -man
guess- gas
said- sad
slept -slapped
end- and
then- than
/ɑ/- /æ/
hot-hat
mop-map
rock-rack
How did you do? Do you have difficulty hearing the difference between words? Tell me in the comments below!
Pronouncing American English vowel sounds requires a good description and model for you to imitate. After all, when vowel sounds are not accurately pronounced- the word will sound totally different than the one you intended! There are other times that vowels are surrounded by sounds that also can be difficult to form correctly. In this lesson, you will practice both: a two-part vowel sound AND a difficult concept…the final L sound.
I love writing these lessons and enjoy teaching to you the sounds that many require help with. I guess it’s not a coincidence that this week you will practice the word enJOY.
https://youtu.be/FBDXuFLgSpM
Today we Celebrate Our Anniversary! And yesterday we “celebrated”! Since we are always talking about past events, let’s learn how to pronounce the -ED using the American English Pronunciation. With regular verbs, we add an -ed to the verb to change the word to mean something that has happenED in the past. There are a few different ways to pronounce the ED sound, so to simplify this for you, here are the 2 most important pronunciation changes:
That extra syllable will sound like “did”
pound + ed (pounded) will sound like “poun-did” and wait + ed (waited) will sound like “wai + did”
2. All other verbs will have a small sound at the end of the word.
cook + ed = “cookt”
play + ed = “playd”
Listen to this lesson and practice repeating after me.
And by the way, Happy Anniversary. It’s been 4 years since I have been recording my podcast. And thank you for listening!
Please comment below about verbs + ed that you have questions about.
Time Flies When You’re Having Fun! |
A New Year means New Beginnings. But for some reason I wanted to reflect back and review some of my favorite recordings, and tell you about the most popularly viewed recordings. I can’t believe it but the recording called, Ring, Ring Hello! currently has over 1,000 listeners. It’s been played in over 50 Countries. You never know what is going to become popular. Unless it’s stuck on constant replay-it must be a favorite somewhere!Listen to My Personal Picks and you will hear my favorite lessons for youIf you’d like to see my playlists (and listen to all 98 lessons) LOOK HEREWe have a whole new year to keep learning from each other.Are you ready? |
Using Your Voice Like A Pro Learn how to stretch your voice and raise your pitch. This is the cornerstone of learning how to make your voice sound more natural and native to English. Raising your pitch while placing stress on words will help the listener hear what you are saying! First let’s learn how […]
Understanding the English MelodyLet’s give some attention to those tiny, small words when we are talking.Understanding the English melody, or the musicality of speaking, is an ebb and flow of emphasizing main words and reducing the little insignificant words in the same phrase. After all, we have to reduce some words in order to highlight the main words. |
Was your English Teacher wrong? There are major differences with learning how to pronounce a word in it’s complete form and how we actually pronounce words in real conversation. Listen to this podcast lesson and this will change your pronunciation of this simple, common word.
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There’s no better time than today!