Pronunciation: Consonants and vowels

HOW TO PRONOUNCIATE CONSONANTS

Consonant Sounds are produced by completely or partially stopping the breath. Consonant Sounds can be voiceless (VL, no vibration of the vocal cords) or voiced (VD, vibration of the vocal cords) and often come in sound pairs.

The symbols used for consonants are shown in the following table. Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the left is voiceless, the one to the right voiced. 

HOW TO PRONOUNCE VOWELS

The 5 vocalic letters of the English alphabet (A, E, I, O, U) have usually two different kinds of pronunciation. English people call these pronunciations "short" or "long" vowel. We are not talking about combinations of vowels here, it is only when they go alone in a syllable, and specially if they are stressed, because non-stressed syllables usually weaken and change their pronunciation (to schwa most of the times).

So, if every vowel may have two different pronunciations, how do we know which pronunciation is the correct one in a word? Well, you have to look it up in a dictionary if you want to know, but we will give you a simple rule that will help you get it right 75% of the times:

C= consonant V= vowel

• Open syllable: C+V (me)  long vowel (the syllable is open, so the vowel can move and get longer)
• Closed syllable: V+C (cat)  short vowel (the syllable is closed, so the vowel can't expand and remains short)

In the word "map" we have a "short A", and in the word "name" we have a "long A".

Notice that we are not talking about the difference between  and , but about the difference between  and .

When we talk here about dividing a word into syllables, we are talking about spelling, not pronunciation. Follow these simple instructions:

1. A syllable always has one vowel (if there is more than one vowel together, these rules don't apply)
2. A consonant followed by a vowel forms syllable with that vowel. A consonant not followed by a vowel forms syllable with the previous vowel. Exeption L or R: clam, pram.

1 syllable C+V = CV (example: "me")     V+C = VC ("at")     CVC ("fan")     CCV ("spa")      CVC ("drop")     VCC ("ask")

2 syllables V+C+V = V - CV ("emo")     CVC - CV ("disco")

examples: pat= pat / summer= sum-mer / bingo= bin-go / computer= com-pu-ter / filing= fi-ling / filling= fil-ling / translation= trans-la-tion / cluster= clus-ter

DOUBLING THE FINAL CONSONANT

Notice how this process causes double consonants in the middle of a word to be separated in 2 different syllables:

C+V+CC+V = CVC +CV       e.g:  FILLING = FIL-LING

more examples:

name = na-me (2 open syllables) smack = smack (1 closed syllable) love = lo-ve (2 open syllables) better = bet-ter (2 closed syllables) important = im-por-tant (3 closed syllables) 

Remember that we are only talking about syllables with one single vocalic letter, so we can apply this rule to the word "Ben", but not to the word "bean". Also, this rule applies mainly to stressed vowels. If the vowel is not stressed, the pronunciation will probably be a Schwa (). And when vowels are followed by the letter R they can change in different words.

A final -E is not pronounced, but it has an effect in the syllable separation:

• PAN = PAN (A is in a closed syllable so the pronunciation is )
• PANE = PA - NE (A is in an open syllable so the pronunciation is )

This is also the reason why we double the final consonant of a word when adding an ending which begins with a vowel, because if we don't double that final consonant, according to this rule, the pronunciation would be different:

• FAT /fæt/  FAT (closed syllable: )
• FATTER /fætə*/  FAT-TER ( closed syllable: )

But if we didn't double the final consonant we would say: FATER /feɪtə*/  FA-TER (open syllable: )

englishlanguageguide.com

multimedia-english.com