English Pronunciation -- "It Sounds Like..."

This is PART TWO with the "short sounds" of cat, pen, fish, pot and sun. The IPA looks like a foreign alphabet. "It Sounds Like" (The ISL method) uses familiar words that Beginners know. Let me know if you have switched to the It Sounds Like Method... I'll add you to my list at FreeEnglishLessons.com

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• sounds
• rhymes
• pronounce
• ESOL
• EFL
• ESL
• beginner
• practice
• pronunciation
• familiar
• IPA
• English
• American
• accent

[mistermath]

US children use a system called SHORT and LONG or ugly and beautiful

cat pen fish hot cut are ugly

day night pete go cute are beautiful

[richivinsky]

I forgot to mention that I like this video very much. It clearly distinguishes between the vowel sounds in english.

[mistermath]

i will include your observations about sell sail tell tail. Thank you. I'm putting together a chapter in my book about pronuncation and "It Sounds Like" is a lot easier than the usual IPA system with upside e and V, backwards C and strange symbols. what is your position. are you a teacher or a learner?

[dylanXhorsieXtime]

He's doing American accents not British.

[saiyajedi]

The Pacific Coast and all of Canada have what's known as the "low back merger", where the "ah" sound (in "father", "top", "pot", etc.) and the "aw" sound (in "dog", "saw", etc.) are pronounced the same. It drives this Easterner nuts.

[laugh0at0you]

how did i get here

[stuvo1977]

@saiyajedi Easterners sound funny to westerners. You guys draw your vowels out. The low back merger is spreading and it will soon take over. The low back merger has prestige, as it is predominate in California, where movies and television shows are made. Just give it a generation or two.

[habeascor]

Finally! I can pronunce "thing" correctly, thanks.

[beenn15]

@jgehl everybody learns differently... especially phonetics. Some people picks up sounds by listening, others need more detailed and unconventional ways to understand and mimic a particular pronunciation.

If this method doesn't work for you, try something else.

[doctorbowe]

@mistermath

[geemac100]

init im english wat are you going on about????????

[95briannanicole]

i dont even understand this, and i speak english. jeez

[himonfukwe]

@pierewiet200 They're not different vowels in any dialect I know. The sounds are slightly different because all vowels in English are slightly different depending on the consonants next to them. A vowel before a voiced consonant (m, n, ng, b, d, g, j, v, z, zh, voiced th) is longer than a vowel before a voiceless consonant (p, t, k, f, s, sh, ch). You don't really need to teach that to a beginning English learner, and I doubt most English teachers ever explain that rule.