ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION
Improve your English pronunciation using these lessons and other resources.
Pronouncing English Sounds We use the 26 letters of the alphabet in English writing. However, when speaking there are roughly 44 different sounds in English. We call these sounds phonemes.
Pronouncing Vowels Vowels are letters that are pronounced by forcing air over your vocal cords through your mouth. It is the shape of your mouth that decides which vowel sound comes out.
Pronouncing Consonants Consonant Sounds are produced by completely or partially stopping the breath. Consonant Sounds can be voiceless (VL, no vibration of the vocal cords) or voiced (VD, vibration of the vocal cords) and often come in sound pairs.
English Suprasegmentals The suprasegmental symbols are called that because they apply to more than one segment (vowel or consonant). In English, the relevant suprasegmentals are the markings for primary and secondary stress.
Stress and intonation Intonation is the name given to sentence stress, or what is sometimes called the "music of the language". Just as words have stressed syllables, sentences contain regular patterns of stressed words.