English Pronunciation: phonetics can help

Post date: Jun 02, 2019 4:27:47 AM

Pronunciation in English is made more complicated as the same sound is made for different letter combinations.

For example: "girl" "work" "earn" are each spoken using the same sound we use at the end of words like "her" or "fur"

Phonetics is a way of breaking words down into the basic sounds we use when we say them. Each sound has its own symbol.

Using phonetic symbols we can see the same sound being used in each word even though the letters we use to write the words differ.

Her - hɜː

girl - gɜːl

work - wɜːk

earn - ɜːn

You can find a full list of the phonetic sounds here.

This phonetic translation site is a good place to start to learn what each symbol actually sounds like.

You can type in the words, play the audio to see and analyse the sounds....

Here are some words that use the same sound but are spelt using different letter combinations:

ɜː worm; germ; curl; pearl; earth

ɔː warm; raw; score; talk; floor

əʊ row; though; doe; ago; owe

ʊə our; flower; flour

iːt eat; feet; delete