2018-10-01 Pronunciation: voiced and voiceless

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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How many vowels does English have?
- 15 or 16
“long” vowels sound like the name of the letter
A: make, hate, save, maid, way
E: feet, meet, beet, free, eat, east, feat, meat, beat
I: like, might, tight, bright
O: or, go, owe, own, low, nose, rose, chose, boat, coat
U: clue, due, too, zoo, food
“short” vowels sound like words with only that vowel
A: bat, sat, had, mad
E: red, bed, set, help, dead, head
I: hit, bit, sit, ship, trip
O: shop, hot, mob, lock
U: must, dust, but, cut, hut, pup

/ə/ = schwa: above, about, photography
/aʊ/: about
/oɪ/: avoid, boy
/ʊ/: look, good, book, foot, would, could, should
/ɔ/: bought, caught, boss, lost, log

/ɚ/: bird is usually pronounced /bɚd/
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How many consonants?
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Consonants are often divided into voiced and voiceless pairs.
voiced consonants in pairs: /b v d g z ð ʒ/
voiceless consonants in pairs: /p f t k s θ ʃ/
other voiced consonants: /w y l r m n ŋ/
another voiceless consonant: /h/
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These (IPA) symbols are in many international or multilingual dictionaries.
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handout exercise 1 - Listen and check which phrase you hear.
1 b
2 a
3 b
4 a
5 a
6 b
7 a
8 b
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Why is it so easy to hear the difference at the beginning of words?
- The puff of air after voiceless stops is called aspiration. If you don’t pronounce it, many English speakers will hear the voiced sound.

pot / spot
top / stop
key / ski
- We don’t aspirate these sounds after /s/ (as much)
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exercise 2 - do the same thing with sounds at the end of words
1 a
2 b
3 a
4 a
5 a
6 b
7 a
8 b
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With your partner, take turns saying these phrases and trying to identify what your partner said.