PHONETICS

It´s important to learn some English phonetics since the Spanish system is a bit different; so if we want to have a good command of spoken English, we should pay attention to some important aspects of English phonetics.


First, I´m sure that you´ve realized that the way we pronounce words, above all long words, is different in both languages. In Spanish we pronounce each and every syllable (try pronouncing “preferiblemente”. Have you left out any syllable?); it is different in English, we have to pay attention to the stresses of the word, sometimes one and sometimes two. Let´s see the word “preferably”, in Spanish we would say /preferabli/ but if we want to pronounce it as an English speaker we should say /pref.ər.ə.bli/. I´ve marked in bold the primary stress, so that syllable is pronounced clearly, the underlined syllable is the secondary stress, so that syllable is also pronounced clearly but those “schwas” (ə) show that those syllables are not pronounced clearly but quite vague.

We have to make use of dictionaries both conventional and online to learn the stresses of the words and try to give prominence to some syllables and make less prominent others. Here you have the link for an online dictionary where you´ll see the phonetic transcription and you´ll listen to the correct pronunciation: DICTIONARY

An important sound we have to learn is the “schwa” / ə/ because you´ll see that it will appear in all the words with non-prominent or unstressed syllables. Here you can have a clear explanation of this sound: SCHWA
This is the phonetic chart we´ll use to identify the sounds of English, here we find 7 short vowels,  5 long vowels (the ones followed by : ), diphthongs and consonants (voiced and unvoiced) :

To see another chart divided into different sections (short vowels, long vowels, diphthongs, voiced and unvoiced consonants) click the following link. Moreover if you click in the different sounds you´ll learn to identify the way this sound can be found in the written language: Chart + graphemes

To see how to pronounce each sound click the follwing Link and click the sound you want to learn how to pronounce: Pronunciation

ACTIVITIES

Activities 1

 Activities 2

PRONUNCIATION ENDING -ED: This is a basic phonetic point, so we have to learn how to know what´s the correct pronunciation of the ending -ed.

We will pronounce it as /t/ if the previous sound is voiceless.
We will pronounce it as /d/ if the previous sound is voiced.
We will pronounce it as /id/ if the previous sound is /t/ or /d/



PRONUNCIATION ENDING -S/-ES:

We will pronounce it as /s/ if the previous sound is voiceless.
We will pronounce it as /z/ if the previous sound is voiced.
We will pronounce it as /iz/ if the previous sound is sibilant