Pronunciation,
Let's make it easy.

The IELTS exam doesn't need to be overly-complicated, I'm here to make it simple.

1. How to pronounce sounds, words, and groups of words

2. What the patterns are

3. What the exceptions are

If you only learn how to say words correctly, you will never achieve the level that you want.

You need to understand:

Your Pronunciation Study Guide!

What is the International Phonetic Alphabet?

The international phonetic alphabet (also called the "IPA") is an system of symbols that provides one specific symbol for each sound.

In English, most letters have many sounds, and it can be confusing to understand how each word is pronounced.
The symbols in the IPA have only one sound, which makes it easy to see how a word is pronounced.
Using the IPA, you can pronounce any word in any language, even if you have never seen it before.

What is voice?

This refers to the use of vibrations in the throat. English sounds are categorized as "voiced" (vibration) or "unvoiced" (no vibration).

What are the articulators?

The articulators are the different parts of the mouth that are used in pronunciation. Knowing the specific parts of the mouth will allow you to understand instructions of how sounds are produced much more easily.

Consonants & Vowels

These are the two most basic ways to divide sounds. All sounds are divided as being either consonants or vowels.

Consonants:

These sounds use a combination of both air flow and the use of an articulator, such as the lips or tongue, to make the sound.
Example: the sound /B/ - when you make this sound you use your lips and air flow.

Vowels:

These sounds use only air flow, there is no need to use your articulators.
Try it: /A/, /E/, /I/, /O/, /O/

Tricky Sounds & Minimal Pairs:

Minimal pairs

Minimal pairs are words that are pronounced the same, but have one difference in sound, these are really great for practicing tricky sounds.

For example:

1. Fry & fly

2. Toe & dough

3. Sheep & ship

Tricky Sounds

Word & Sentence Stress

Some sounds in English are quite difficult to pronounce.

For example, these sounds are especially difficult when they are in similar sounding words:

L & R (like in the words "fly" and "fry")
SH & CH (like in the words "ship" and "chip")
T & D (like in the words "tie" and "die")

Patterns and rules:

Connected speech

Word stress: The emphasis (louder/slower) on one syllable in a word.

With incorrect word stress, you will be misunderstood or sound very strange

Sentence stress The emphasis on one specific word in a sentence.

Sentence Stress can significantly change the overall meaning.

Connected speech refers to the many ways that we join words together in spoken language. These ways include linking, chunking, intrusion, assimilation, and elision.

Linking: Joining the end of one word to the beginning of another word so they sound like one word (like "tur-noff" for turn off).
Elision: Removing sounds to make speech smoother, often when words share a beginning/ending sound.
- camera = /cam-ra/
- next = /nex/
Assimilation: Sounds changing based on the influence of neighboring sounds.
- Examle:
  - Here, N becomes M: "one boat" actually sounds like "wum boat"
Intrusion: Adding an extra sound between words for a smoother transition.
- "I ate" = I-y-ate
- "He is" = he-y-is
Chunking: Grouping high-frequency expressions together, often resulting in a "lazy" but natural-sounding pronunciation.
- It basically sounds like we are turning several words into one word
  - Example: "By the way" sounds like one big word > "bytheway"

The Basics of Pronunciation:

Pronunciation vs. Accent:

Good pronunciation when you produce sounds correctly and they can be clearly understood and do not cause misunderstandings.
Accent is when your native language influences your production of sound
You can have perfect pronunciation and keep your accent as long as you are clearly and easily understandable.

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Pronunciation, Let's make it easy.