Instruction

I, Pronunciation /s/, /z/ or /iz/

Getting the sound right is essential for communicating your meaning clearly. Choosing the wrong sound can confuse your listener because it can actually sound like another word, or even sound incomplete. Let's break it down. We choose /s/, /z/, /iz/ based on how we move our mouth and our voice box to form and voiced box.

• /s/ sound after the other voiceless sounds because we can flow smoothly into sound. The ending characters -p, -k, -t, -f and -th are often used for voiceless sounds, according to the phonetic transcription would be /f/, /t/, /k/, /p/ and /θ/.

E.g: cats, maps, likes

• z/ sound: /z/ is a voiced sound, which means it follows other voiced sounds. Once again, this help us be more efficient when producing these sounds. If the word ends in a voiced sound (you can check by looking up the IPA or touching your throat and feeling for laryngeal vibration), adding s es to the word and we will pronounce them as /z/.

E.g: finds, dreams, tags

• iz/ sound: Despite how it's spelled, the /iz/ ending actually sounds like /iz/. The /iz/ ending on plural nouns or third person singular verbs will nver be stressed. When we reduce sounds, they actually sound like the schwa sound /o/ or the /i/ sound.Words ending in -sh, -ce, -s, -ss, -z, -ge, -ch, -x, called voiceless consonants, often end with the following phonetic transcriptions: /s/, / z/, /∫/, /t∫/, /dʒ/, /ʒ/

E.g : watches, misses, closes

• Please watch the video below to understand in detail how to pronounce e/es in English !!!

II, Pronunciation one or two syllables ?

1, What is a syllable ?

A syllable is a part of a word that contains a single vowel sound and that is pronounced as a unit.

For example, ' book' has one syllable, and ' reading' has two syllables.

To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables. Every word is made of syllables. Each word has one, two, three, or more syllables. In today’s lesson, we will focus on one- and two-syllable words.