English pronunciation

Marta Hurtado
Myriam Fraile
 English pronunciation
• Level: advanced

• Theme: phonological aspects of the

English language
 Phonological terms
the schwa

voiced consonant stressed syllable

long vowel

diphthong

unvoiced consonant short vowel

rising entonation consonant cluster hard consonant

Get familiar with phonetic symbols and their sounds:

1 Vowels : http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/elementary/c_pronunciation/pronunciation01/

•2 Diphthongs : http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/elementary/c_pronunciation/pronunciation02/

•3 Consonants : http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/elementary/c_pronunciation/pronunciation03/

•4 More consonants : http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/elementary/c_pronunciation/pronunciation04/

•Pronunciation 5050 : http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/elementary/c_pronunciation/ef_5050/

•Stress Monsters : http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/elementary/c_pronunciation/ef_stressgame/

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English pronunciation

PD = Paul Dummett IT = Ian Thompson

PD: OK, so could you tell me first what any learner finds difficult about English pronunciation? Is there one particular thing um ...
which is difficult for all nationalities?
IT: I think one problem with English is simply that we've got so many sounds; that if you look at the vowel chart of many
languages, you get languages with as few as three vowels. Um ... as you know Spanish and Japanese are a fairly typical pattern
with five vowels each plus a few diphthongs perhaps; eight, eleven is another common number, but English has got this huge
vowel count. I won't put a figure on it because it depends on how you count them: whether you count the triphthongs like /aiə/ and
/oiə/ as vowels or whether you consider them combinations, but we really have got a lot of vowels and ...
PD: We're talking now about standard British pronunciation?
IT: Well, that's another problem, of course. Yes, if we take RP as the standard ... British RP ... things like bud, bed, bid, bad. For
many speakers of many languages these seem hopelessly close together and easy to confuse and I think another point is ... although
we haven't got a desperately complex consonant system, we've got, we get quite cruel clusters of consonants at the end ... at the
ends of words. Lots of languages seem to have clusters at the beginning ... and we have them in English: /str/ as in strong, /spl/ as
in splay; rather odd ones like /θw/ as in thwart, /dw/ as in dwindle. But English has very tricky ones at the end like judged, sixths,
strengths, some quite unusual clusters of consonants, many of which only occur in two or three different words. I think probably
lengths and strengths are the only two common words, at least which have got /nθs/ at the end; and particularly having the /θ/ and
/s/ following each other and of course - I should say particularly having /s/ following /θ/ is difficult, although I admit that even
English speakers simplify them. Um, another thing I think is the stress, intonation, linking system, the question, the presence of the
/ə/ vowel, the so-called schwa vowel, the neutral vowel; the distribution of that is quite tricky. I think speakers of, say, languages
like Portuguese and Russian, which have also got a system where you have very heavy stresses on the stressed syllables and very
light stresses on the unstressed syllables and a tendency to lengthen the stressed syllables and to crowd in the unstressed ones -
speakers of those languages find less difficulty, whereas, as you know, for French speakers um ... it really is a challenge because I
wonder whether any two languages could have a more different system of stress, intonation, length, vowel quality than English
and French.
PD: Right, I see. And is there ... we touched earlier on RP and so on. What is recognized now as the standard for English? I take it
it's no longer RP, that seems to be the preserve of...
 Now answer these questions:
• Why might Portuguese and Russian
speakers have less difficulty?
•Why might Spanish and Japanese
speakers find English especially
difficult to pronounce?

•What does Ian Thompson say

about French and English?
 You are going to hear nine different nationalities talking about themselves in English.
Before you listen, look at the descriptions of the pronunciation traits of these nationalities and
try to match each description with the correct nationality.

They speak with a very regular rhythm.

They often speak with a nasal tone and find it difficult to distinguish between 'l' and 'r'.
They pronounce the 'r' following a vowel sound strongly in words like 'before', 'heart' JAPANESE
and 'father'.
ENGLISH
Their intonation tends to rise in mid-sentence and speakers confuse the English 'v' and
'W'. ARABS

They articulate fewer vowel sounds and also find it difficult to distinguish between the ITALIANS
English sounds 'p' and 'b'. FRENCH
The intonation usually rises at the end of statements (and they pronounce 'r' strongly). NORTHERN IRISH
They swallow their words. SPANISH
When speaking English they often say 'feet' for 'fit’ and 'cheap' for 'chip'. They also find SWISS and GERMANS
it difficult to pronounce final consonants.
AMERICANS
They soften hard consonants, produce unique vowel sounds and pronounce the 'r'
from the back of the mouth.

Now listen to the nine speakers and check if you have matched the descriptions to
the nationalities correctly. (Click on the icon)
Can you think of the difficulties that speakers of other languages have when
pronouncing ours?
 From a railway
carriage
From a Railway Carriage
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain:
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles:
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes:
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!
Robert Louis Stevenson
 Finally, ...
YES NO
can you recognize phonetic symbols?

can you use them to improve your

pronunciation?

are you aware of the importance of a good

command of phonetics when learning/speaking
a language?
are you going to use what you have
learned?