Make the noises in English

In English, we have 24 consonant sounds. Some sounds— like sing, garage, and thick—don't show up in the alphabet, because they can't be written with just one letter. Watch this video to hear and practice all the consonant sounds.

Different languages lack different sounds. For example, Korean speakers may use the sound “p” for the letter “f”. Because there is no sound “f” in their language, they are not used to making that noise. Spanish speakers may say “t” instead of “th” and Chinese speakers may say “w” instead of “v”. Figure out which sound you are struggling to make, based on your native language, feedback from people you speak with, and what you experienced while practicing with the video in Step 1.

If you want to learn how to make a consonant, try watching a video to understand what you should do with your lips, jaw, teeth, and tongue. In this video by Rachel’s English, Rachel shows us how our mouth position should be different for the letters “r” and “l”.

Knowing how to make two different noises is just the start! Now you need to practice going back and forth between the two noises quickly and accurately. This will be really hard at first, but it gets easier with time. A good way to practice is using minimal pairs. A minimal pair is a pair of words where all the phonemes (or sounds) are the same, except for one. For example, in alive and arrive, the words sound exactly the same – except for the r and l. You can find lists for any minimal pairs by searching the internet. Here is a list of minimal pairs for r and l.

It’s not enough to only think about pronunciation when you’re studying. Try and remember to use what you have learned when you are in real-life situations where you are speaking English.

Although there are only five letters in the alphabet that are considered vowels (a, e, i, o, u), we have 12 vowel sounds in English! We also have four diphthongs, which are two vowels back-to-back. That makes 16 vowel sounds. Watch this video to hear the sounds, and try to repeat them yourself.

Different languages lack different sounds. If you are a Spanish-speaker, you may struggle to make the vowel sounds in the words silver, black, purple, and mustard. Figure out which sound you are struggling to make, based on your native language, feedback from people you speak with, and what you experienced while practicing with the video in Step 1.

Your language probably shares some vowels with English. For example, if you speak Spanish, maybe you can say green and grey but silver is harder for you. If you practice sliding between the noises “ee” (like green) and “ey” (like grey), you will find that ih (like silver) is somewhere in between. When we slide between two vowels we can make in order to find the vowel we can’t make, it’s called Color Vowel Yoga. Learn more about Color Vowel Yoga by watching this video.

Remember, a minimal pair is a pair of words where all the phonemes (or sounds) are the same, except for one. You can also use minimal pairs to practice vowels. For example, in hit and heat, the words sound exactly the same – except for the difference in vowels. Here’s a list of other words like hit and heat.

It’s not enough to only think about pronunciation when you’re studying. Try and remember to use what you have learned when you are in real-life situations where you are speaking English.

The way we pronounce letters like t, r, and l, changes depending on where in the word a letter falls (beginning, middle, or end), and what letters are next to it.

For example, in this podcast from Rachel's English, Rachel explains the three different pronunciations of the letter t.

Have you ever had trouble understanding an American? Even though you know how English words sound in isolation, you may not be familiar with connected speech. Whether we're speaking or reading aloud, Americans change and drop sounds as we string words together. You can learn these rules to sound more natural when you read aloud. Some features of connected speech for you to learn about are linking, assimilation, deletion, and reduction of weak forms.