Learn All English Sounds & Pronounce Words Perfectly with the IPA!
A1
Hey there I'm Emma from mmmEnglish.
This lesson will help you learn all English sounds
but more specifically, how to learn and remember
the IPA symbols
so that you can study and improve your pronunciation
more effectively.
The IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet.
It's a set of symbols that represents
the different sounds in English
and I know that the thought of learning what must
seem like an entirely new alphabet
in order to know how to pronounce English words
must be really frustrating.
But in order to know what sounds to produce,
to pronounce a word correctly you need to be able to
see and to recognise which sound you need to make.
And this is where the IPA can help you.
Instead of looking at the letters in this word
and trying to pronounce them, maybe saying busi-ness,
you'll see the actual sounds that combine to produce the word
and pronounce it correctly,
business.
Now I want you to tell me down in the comments right now
what English word is most difficult for you to pronounce.
If you add it down below I'm going to try and make
some short videos helping to explain the pronunciation for you
but right now in this lesson
I'm not only gonna teach you all of the English sounds
but I'm also going to train you to associate the sounds
with their symbols so that you can start using the IPA as a tool
to pronounce any English word that you learn correctly.
Now because this lesson is a big one, there's a lot to take in,
there's a lot to learn,
I've created you a free pdf workbook that you can download
using the link in the description below.
If you follow the link, you add your email address, I'll send
that PDF to you straight away.
It's going to have all of the sounds that we'll practise in this
lesson today and all of the example words as well
so it's a really useful resource. Go grab it after the lesson
to review what we practise right now.
This is just a friendly reminder that my accent is an Australian
English accent so everything I'm teaching in this lesson
relates to Australian English pronunciation.
So by now you probably have already noticed
that English is not a phonetic language.
There are twenty-six letters in the English alphabet
but there are forty-four or forty-five different English sounds
depending on who you ask.
Vowel sounds in particular are a challenge because there's only
five vowel letters in English
but there are nineteen different vowel sounds.
This is why you need the IPA.
So let's take a look.
These are the forty-four sounds of English.
You'll notice that some of these sounds look like
English letters so that makes it easy right?
You can see the letter B for the /b/ sound.
The letter K for the /k/ sound.
But there are some different symbols here for other sounds.
For example, this one represents the /ʃ/ sound.
We use this symbol to represent the sound because
it can be written with different English letters in English words
like
show,
relation,
passion
and chef.
Notice how the IPA is divided into different sections?
The top half shows all of the English vowel sounds.
On this left side you'll find all the monophthong vowel sounds.
It's a complicated name for a very simple thing.
These are just the pure vowel sounds. Let's go through them.
Ship.
Sheep.
Book.
Move.
Egg.
Her.
Teacher.
This is our relaxed lazy schwa sound.
We really need to relax our jaw.
Door.
I like to remember this one by imagining the shape of my lips,
the same shape as that symbol.
And again I like to remember the shape of my mouth
with this symbol.
It's big, it's open.
Cup.
On.
Car.
So here's a quick tip.
The sounds with the two dots are long vowel sounds.
This right side has the diphthong sounds.
They are also vowel sounds but they are different
because each individual sound is made up of a combination
of sounds.
Compare that monophthong sound
which is just one sound with the diphthong sound
which is two sounds combined to make one sound.
So the diphthong sound is actually made up of the /ɔ:/
and /ɪ/ vowel sounds.
Let's go through all of them now.
/eɪ/ as in day.
/ɔɪ/ as in boy.
/aɪ/ as in like.
/eə/ as in hair.
/ɪə/ as in here.
/ʊə/ as in tour.
/əʊ/ as in show.
/aʊ/ as in mouth.
The bottom half of the IPA table shows all of the English
consonant sounds and you'll see that some of these symbols
are the same as English letters. That makes things simple.
There are two main types of English consonant sounds,
unvoiced and voiced.
Unvoiced consonant sounds are made by pushing
air through your mouth and it's the air that creates
the sound so actually when you make unvoiced
consonant sounds, you should be able to hold your hand
in front of your mouth and you should feel the air coming out.
So let's practise and keep your hand there if you need to.
Pea.
Far.
Think.
Top.
Say.
She.
Chip.
That sound /ʧ/ is a combination of the t and ʃ.
Remember that when you're looking for this symbol.
Key.
Voiced consonant sounds are made using your vocal chords.
So when you're using your vocal chords you can
feel them vibrating or moving.
You shouldn't have a lot of air coming out of your mouth
when you're making voiced sounds. The sound is made here.
Beat.
Van.
This.
Dog.
Zip.
Vision.
Jam.
This is a combination of the /d/ and /ʒ/ sounds.
Gap.
Man.
Next.
Young.
Hope.
Win.
Love.
Run.
You.
The thing is, if you can learn to recognise and to produce
these English sounds, you'll be able to pronounce
any new English word that you learn perfectly
just by breaking it down into the correct sounds
but it's also going to help you to use the correct
syllable stress, sentence stress,
rhythm and help you to speak much more clearly and naturally.
So the question is
how do you memorise all of these symbols and sounds?
We practise!
Okay so we are not going to focus on the sounds that look
exactly like the letters. They're the easy ones.
We're going to focus our energy on these vowel and
consonant sounds that we need to learn how to recognise.
So you'll see them come up on screen just here
and when they do, don't just think about the sound,
I want you to make the sound as you see it so
what we're trying to do is associate the sound
with the movement of your muscles. This is really important
okay. This is why we're practising together.
So just try and pronounce the sound.
The word is going to be there just to prompt you
okay but I want you to focus on memorising the sound.
Let's start with...
Now we'll go through all of these same sounds again
in a different order and without my voice this time
so you need to guess. You need to make the sound out loud.
After one second I'll give you a little clue,
I'll add that word up on screen and then
you'll hear me make the sound so you can check if you're right.
We're working with your memory here, we're trying to make
these sounds and symbols stick.
Edge.
Flute.
Hide.
Tissue.
Apart.
Bother.
Angry.
Bath.
Breeze.
Cook.
Happen.
Cap.
Hair.
Sip.
Know.
Culture.
Cure.
Measure.
Boy.
Hurt.
Cup.
How.
Pay.
Yes.
Beer.
Poor.
Soft.
Show.
Okay you've made it to the last part!
This is where we get to have some fun all right.
You're gonna see some sounds come up on screen
and you need to guess the word.
Remember to do this out loud.
It's important that you're training your
ears, your eyes, your mouth
all together. They're working as a team here.
Yacht.
Young.
Brochure.
Greet.
Breathe.
Groceries.
Jungle.
Mission.
Mechanic.
Moustache.
Nationality.
Nurse.
Pouch.
Qualify.
Reservation.
Single.
Special.
Technique.
Toenail.
Urgent.
So I really hope that you enjoyed that practice today.
I designed it so you can continue to come back and test
yourself, maybe skip over the sounds
and come straight to the practice
because it's going to take you some time to practise
and to remember all of these different sounds.
I know when I was learning them I found it really helpful
to associate the different
shapes and the different sounds or combinations of sounds
that came together to produce these words.
It really helped me to remember them.
Watch it again, test yourself,
remind yourself about all of these different sounds,
keep practising, make it stick in your mind.
And if you want me to make another practice lesson
just like this one,
let me know down in the comments below.
Practice makes perfect, doesn't it?
I'll see you in the next lesson.
