english pronunciation
4 Basic English Pronunciation Rules
Here we show you several basic English pronunciation rules to help you during your classes at your ESL school and in your practice time alone. Make your practice a dynamic and effective one by looking for new words these rules apply to:
1. Pronunciation of the “Y”
“Y” is pronounced as ‘ai’ or ‘i:’.
- In one-syllable words, “Y” is pronounced as ‘ai’. For example: my, by, fly, shy, sky, dry, cry, fry, and try.
- In two-syllable words, “Y” is pronounced as ‘i:’. As example: happy, funny, baby, bony, puppy, party, tiny, city, candy, berry, penny, and turkey.
2. Pronunciation of the “C”
“C” is pronounced as ’s’ or ‘k’. For example: city, cider, circle, and country.
- When an “E” or “Y” follow the “C”, it is pronounced as ’s’. Good examples are: cellar, center, cent, ice, cycle, cell, cypress, and cyclone.
- When an “O”, “U”, or “A” follows the “C”, it is pronounced as ‘k’. Some examples are: cold, country, computer, couple, cup, curb, cut, cap, can, and cat.
Read these sentences aloud and compare both sounds:
_ The city is cloudy.
_ The center is covered.
_ We cycle in the city but drive the car in the country.
3. Pronunciation of the “G”
- When an “E”, “I”, or “Y” follows the “G”, it is pronounced as ‘ʤ’. Examples are: gym, giant, gem, gorgeous, and George.
- When a “U” or “A” follows the “G”, it is pronounced as ‘’ or ‘æ’. For example: gun, gum, gas, garden, and gap.
4. Pronunciation of vowel letters
- The long “A” and the short “A”, for example: cape and gap.
-at: bat, cat, hat, fat, sat, rat
-ad: bad, had, mad, sad
-ag: tag, wag, rag, bag
-an: fan, pan, can, ran
-am: jam, ham, ram, yam
-ap: map, tap, nap
When the word ends in “E”, the “A” is pronounced as a long vowel. Examples of this are: rake, gate, face, base, cage, wave, and take.
When the word ends in “R”, the “A” sound is as in: tar, jar, car, and far.
- The long “I” and the short “I”.
-id: bid, kid, lid, did
-ig: big, rig, wig, pig, dig
-in: pin, fin, tin, win, bin
-ip: tip, lip, hip, rip, dip
-it: kit, hit, fit, sit, pit
When the word ends in “E”, the “I” is pronounced as a long vowel. For example: kite, bike, dime, ride, and vine.
- The long “O” and the short “O”.
-og: fog, hog, dog, jog, log
-op: mop, pop, hop, top
-ot: hot, pot, got, not
-ob: mob, cob, job, sob
When the word ends in “E”, the “O” is pronounced as a long vowel. As examples: rose, pole, and hope.
- The long “U” and the short “U”.
-ut: pup, cup, put, up, rut, hut, cut, nut
-ub: cub, tub
-us: bus, pus
-un: fun, sun, run, bun, gun
-ug: mug, bug, tug, hug
When the word ends in “E”, the “O” is pronounced as a long vowel. Examples: tune, cube, and cute.
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Wgtjkcjf lfkldsfk hjtypraa, Got it?!
The key to learning English is to really pay attention when you speak and listen. Sometimes it is hard for ESL students to grasp everything that is being said to them, even during ESL classes, because the other person talks very fast or uses vocabulary they still don’t master. However, this is what it is all about: getting out there, talking and sharing with others, so as to practice and get used to the way people speak in English.
No one should feel ashamed about not understanding or not being clear when they are learning a language. Instead of pretending you got what the others are saying when you really didn’t understand a single word, it could be an address, a question, instructions, or a joke, simply use one of these phrases to ask the others to clarify. This is the only way in which you will really practice and eventually learn the English language:
- Pardon?
- Sorry, what’s your question?
- Can you repeat that?
- Would you mind repeating that?
- Sorry, I didn’t understand
- I missed what you said.
- I don’t get it. (means you don’t understand how to do something, for example, when someone is giving instructions)
- Sorry, I still don’t get it. (when a person has repeated himself or herself to explain)
- Could you run that by me again?
- Can you say that again?
- Could you slow down; I’m learning English.
- Can you spell that, please?
- I’m confused.
- I’m lost. (when you don’t know what someone is talking about because you lost the thread of the conversation)
- You lost me. (same as above, but in an informal setting)
- Say it again? (means repeat, but in an informal setting)
If you want to explain further why you didn’t understand something, you can add:
- I don’t speak English.
- English is my second language.
- I’m not from here.
In the same way, never presume people understood what you said. Talking to others is a great opportunity to ask for help in correcting pronunciation, so, if someone is giving you a puzzled or shocked look, it may be that you just said something that sounded weird, but they are too polite to correct you. If you think you didn’t explain yourself right or that someone didn’t get what you said, here’s the help you need:
- Did you get that?
- Was that clear?
- Did that make sense?
- Let me say it again.
- Let me clarify.
- What I mean is…
- That’s not what I meant.
- Let me put it in a different way.
- Sorry, my pronunciation may be incorrect.
Most people talk through gestures too. Someone can let you know they didn’t get a word of what you said by moving a part of their body, and so can you. These are some typical gestures:
- Shake the head from side to side.
- Lift shoulders up.
- Tip your head a little towards the speaker.
- Wrinkle your forehead.
Try using some of these expressions in your ESL class, and your teacher will be very impressed!
If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention www.englishlci.com as the original source).
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Great Tips to Achieve Accuracy in Pronunciation
Accurate pronunciation is one of the most difficult ordeals faced by students in ESL classes, as well as in the real world. We are talking about the terribly awkward sensation of having to make a choice on how to say something in a language foreign to them. Just think, it is even an issue with native speakers of a language; just imagine how ESL students feel. We all know there is nothing worse than trying to talk to someone in a foreign language and looking at the person’s puzzled face across from you probably thinking, “I wonder what she’s trying to say”. At this point frustration is too much to bear. So, the question that plagues many students when coming across a word unknown to them is, how do I pronounce this when I have never heard it before? Here are some great tips that can help:
*Learn phonetic rules, learn to use the dictionary
Like many other things, phonetic rules can be learned. Using a dictionary can certainly help when you want to know the meaning of a new word and it can be equally as practical when you need to know how to pronounce a word. Unfortunately, most ESL students don’t know how to fully take advantage of dictionaries. Dictionaries contain the phonetic pronunciation of words. As you probably know, phonetic symbols are a great help when it comes to learning to pronounce English words correctly. Any time you open a dictionary, you can find the correct pronunciation of words you don’t know by looking at the phonetic pronunciation that follows. Unfortunately, learning the phonetic alphabet is not always the easiest thing to do but, it’s a great way to start.
*Use online dictionaries where you can hear pronunciation
Online dictionaries are a super way to learn proper pronunciation. Most have icons you can click on to hear the words you want to learn how to pronounce. Nothing beats that! Also, going back to phonetics, you can see the phonetic symbol, and then hear the word, which makes it a great way to learn symbols
*Focus on correct, and then go for perfection
Don’t expect to pronounce like a native speaker. If you do achieve this, great! It is just an unrealistic objective when you are learning a second language. Instead, you can acquire proper intonation and stress. English is a stress-timed language and, as such, good pronunciation depends a lot on the ability to accent the correct words and successfully use intonation to make sure you are understood. In other words, spoken English stresses the principal elements in a sentence - content words - and quickly glides over the less important words - function words. Nouns, principal verbs, adjectives and adverbs are all content words. Pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, conjunctions are function words and are pronounced quickly moving towards the more important words. This quality of quickly gliding over less important words is also known as ‘connected speech’.
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