Many of the students I work with speak English very quickly. This makes it difficult to understand what they are saying! Sometimes they speak quickly because they feel nervous. Sometimes their fast speech is simply a carryover from the way they speak their native language. If you speak English too quickly, your listeners have to… Continue reading #89, Susan Ryan’s Tip: Frequently Mispronounced Consonant
Tag: Susan Ryan
#79, Susan Ryan’s Tip: The Various American English Pronunciations of ‘ough’
When you are speaking American English, the letter combination ough can be tricky to pronounce. That is because ough has many different pronunciations in spoken English. Here are examples of the most frequent pronunciations of ough. The categories listed here are adapted from the author and teacher Ann Cook. In these words ough is pronounced… Continue reading #79, Susan Ryan’s Tip: The Various American English Pronunciations of ‘ough’
#78, Susan Ryan’s Tip: The Sounds of T
One of the reasons that spoken American English is difficult to master is that many letters have more than one sound. There are 26 letters in the alphabet but linguists state that these letters have about 40 different sounds. One letter with a variety of different pronunciations is the letter T. The letter T (like… Continue reading #78, Susan Ryan’s Tip: The Sounds of T
#77, Susan Ryan’s Tip: ‘American English Pronunciation & Phonetics’
‘Since English is not a phonetic language there is not always a one-on-one relationship between the letters in the English alphabet and spoken sounds. This lack of one on one correspondence can cause problems when you want to pronounce English words correctly. The 26 letters in the English (Roman) alphabet make more than 26 sounds.… Continue reading #77, Susan Ryan’s Tip: ‘American English Pronunciation & Phonetics’