PRONUNCIATION KEY

 

A_Vowel: 1 speech-sound made with vibration of the vocal cords but without audible friction, 2 letter(s) representing this, as a, e, i, o, u, aw, ah.

Phonetics	Accent
i:	EE (long I) as in see, deep
i	I (short I) as in dip, it
e	E (short E) as in met, get
æ	A (short A) as in cat, man
a:	AH (long open A) as in father, march
ɔ	O (short closed O) as in spot, hot
ɔ:	O (long closed O) as in sport, saw
u	OO (short U) as in put, took
u:	EW (long U) as in too, boot
Λ	U (another form of short U) as in but, cup
ə:	UR (long) as in bird, worm
ə	ER (short) as in circus, china

B_Diphthongs: two written or spoken vowels pronounced in one syllable (as in coin, loud, toy).

Phonetics	Accent
ei	AY as in ate, say
əu	OH as in go, no
ai	AI as in my, ice

Notice:	Height (AI) but eight, weight (AY)
	Aisle (AI) but raised (AY)
	Eye (AI) but prayed (AY)

au	OW as in now, brow
ɔi	OY as in noise, oil
ui	UI as in ruin
iə	EEA as in fear, ear
Ĭə	EA as in happier
ə	AYR as in there, air
ɔə	OR as in door, four
uə	UER as in sure, poor
ŭə	OOA as in influence

C_Consonant: 1 speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed, and which forms a syllable by combining with a vowel, 2 letter(s) representing this.

   1. Plosive: pronounced with a sudden release of breath.

Accent:	P, T, K (voiceless) as in pin, tin, kin
Accent:	B, D, G (voiced) as in bin, din, begin

2. Nasal : 1 of the nose. 2 (of a letter or a sound) pronounced with the breath passing through the nose, e.g. m, n, ng. 3 (of the voice or speech) having many nasal sounds, —n. nasal letter or sound.

Accent:

M, N, NG as in man, none, having, name, sing

3. Laterals & Glides: 1 move smoothly and continuously, 2 pass gradually or imperceptibly.

	Accent:		Clear L (before vowels) as in along, let, yet, red
	Accent:		Dark L (before consonants) as in will, well
Notice:		If a word ending in Dark L is followed by a word beginning with a vowel the pronunciation changes to Clear L

4. Fricatives: (of a consonant) sounded by friction of the breath in a narrow opening, —n. such a consonant (e.g. f, th).

i.		Accent:		F, TH (voiceless) as in fish, think
		Accent:		V, TH (voiced) as in have, there
ii.		Accent:		S, SH (voiceless) as in say, she
		Accent:		Z, ZH (voiced) as in praise, treasure
	Phonetics		Accent
	r		as in read, rule, grin, tree
	f		as in fast, four, food, fish
	v		as in vast, observer, vow, vote
	θ		as in thin, earth, thigh, throw
	ð		as in that, they, there, bathe
	s		as in sink, stop, sit, fast
	z		as in loser, observer, noise, president
	∫		as in  crash, shoe, fish, sure
	z		as in vision, casual, measure, pleasure
	h		as in hall, hot, head, heart

5.  Affricates: A phoneme that combines a plosive with an immediately following fricative or spirant sharing the same place 

Accent:	CH, TR (voiceless) as in chair, tree
Accent:	J, DR (voiced) as in joke, draw

6. Semi-vowels: 1 Sound intermediate between a vowel and a consonant, 2 Letter representing this (e.g. w, y).

Accent:	W as in well
Accent:	Y as in young

D_ Elision:

It means missing a letter/syllable in pronunciation. Some letters are written, but are not pronounced while spoken, they are called silents. A few centuries ago, they were pronounced as written, in course of time, they are overlooked in pronunciation, but persisted in writing; as: in knowledge k, w and d are silents. Similarly H is silent in Honest. P is silent in Psychology.

Notice:

foreign (silent g),  night (silent gh),  business (silent i),  half (silent l),  halfpenny  (silent lf),  waistcoat (silent first t),  biscuit (silent u),  whole (silent w), building   (silent u).

E_ Stress:

It is an emphasis on a syllable or word. It is the quantity of energy or breath-energy used in producing sound. It has two kinds :- Syllable Stress and Word Stress.

1.   Syllable Stress:- There are no specific conditions for stress on letters. As a result, there is no rule. Therefore, an English speaking person may be true help. The change in syllable stress may be difficult because a single word has different stresses when used in the form of different parts of speech; as :-

a_The comedian starred in an excellent comedy.

b_How many competitors were there in that competition?

2. Word Stress:- The words are stressed according to condition, or the listener may bring out another meaning; as : at the time of buying a rail ticket, if you say “for Delhi, please.” It means one ticket is needed for Delhi.  But if you speak  stressing ‘For’, the listener will make out“four Delhi, please.” i.e. four tickets for Delhi. The following words have vowel-sound ER when stress is removed :- a, an and, are, as, but, can, could, for, from, have, has, her (objective), her (possessive), must, should, some, to, than, that, them, us, would, your.

F_Intonation:

It is the modulation of the voice in speech. you must learn to recognize falling, rising and level tones in english and to understand the different meanings implied by these changes of tone; as :-

a	She’s a good girl.
	(Level tone ― ordinary statement)
b	She’s a good girl, isn’t she?
	(Falling tone ―not genuinely interrogative/ no doubt)
c	She’s a good girl, isn’t she?
	(Rising tone ― definite interrogation/ doubtful)

G_ Word-Linking (catenation):

It is a phenomenon in spoken English. Just say “It’s a fine day.” And almost definitely you find that you speak in a clipped and jerky style. But the sentence should be as continuous as a single words ‘peculiarity’ or ‘sympathetically’. So learn to join up your words correctly and practice saying a sentence all in one breath. This is particularly desirable, because there are several words beginning with a vowel.