English sounds
Important terms
phonemes The sounds of a spoken language
graphemes The written equivalent of sounds or phonemes
A sound of two different vowel sounds that are closely
diphthong
joined together and treated
s
as one vowel
letters of English:
The English alphabet has 26 letters, made up of consonants and vowels. There are five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and
the rest are all consonants.
A a, B b, C c, D d, E e, F f, G g, H h, I i, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o,
P p, Q q, R r, S s, T t, U u, V v, W w, X x, Y y, Z z.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
The (IPA) is an alphabet of phonetic notation designed to capture all the different ways words in English can
be pronounced and the tables below illustrate the equivalence of each grapheme (or letter) in the orthographic
alphabet to a phoneme in IPA which are 44 graphemes
Table 1: - Consonants (24 graphemes)
grapheme IPA words grapheme IPA words
1 /b/ B baby 13 /r/ r rabbit, wrong
2 /d/ D dog 14 /s/ s mouse, city, science
3 /f/ F field, photo 15 /t/ t Tap
4 /g/ G game 16 /v/ v Van
5 /h/ H hat 17 /w/ w Was
6 /j/ ʤ judge, giant, 18 /y/ j Yes, Yellow, Yard
7 /k/ K cook, quick, mix 19 /z/ z zebra, please, is
8 /l/ L lamb 20 /th/ ð then
9 /m/ M monkey, comb 21 /th/ θ Thin
10 /n/ N nut, knife, gnat 22 /ch/ ʧ chip, watch
11 /ng/ Ŋ ring, sink 23 /sh/ ʃ ship, mission, chef
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12 /p/ P paper 24 zh/ ʒ treasure
Table 2: - Vowels and diphthongs (20 graphemes)
grapheme IPA words grapheme IPA words
1 /a/ æ cat 11 /oo/ ʊ look, would, put
2 /e/ e peg, bread 12 /ar/ ɑ: cart, fast (regional)
3 /i/ ɪ pig, give 13 /ur/ ɜ: burn, first, term, heard
4 /o/ ɒ log, want 14 /au/ ɔ: door, warn, law, call
5 /u/ ʌ plug, love 15 /uh/ ə Extra, circus, data
6 /ae/ eɪ pain, day, gate 16 /ow/ aʊ down, shout
7 /ee/ i: sweet, heat, thief 17 /oi/ ɔɪ coin, boy
8 /ie/ aɪ tried, light, my 18 /air/ eə stairs, bear, hare
9 /oe/ oʊ road, blow, cold 19 /ear/ ɪə fear, beer, here
10 /ue/ u: moon, blue, grew 20 ure/ ʊə pure, cure
Voiced Consonants vs. Voiceless Consonants
A voiced consonant (or sound) means that it uses the vocal cords and they produce a vibration or humming
sound in the throat when they are said such as the sounds of
[ /b/ – /d/ – /g/ ]
A voiceless sound (sometimes called an unvoiced sound) is when there is no vibration in your throat and the
sound comes from the mouth area such as the sounds of
[ /f/ – /k/ – /p/]
*Note: all the vowel sounds are voiced sound because vowels are produced by modifying the hum
(or voice) created by the vibration of the vocal cords.
Some important sounds in English:
The sound of (SH) / ʃ /
The sound of the (sh) is like the sound that we make to shoo animals as in these examples.
[Shop – Share – Shock – Shift – Dish]
*Note: the sound of / ʃ / can be pronounced in other words which don’t have the (sh) letters as in these
examples
[Action – Emotion – Definition – Artificial – Condition – Intuition]
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The sound of (CH) / tʃ /
It’s the same sound of / ʃ / but preceded with the sound of / t / as in these examples
[Chop – Chair – Chef – Change – Child]
It also can be pronounced as /k/ in words from a
Greek origin such as [Mechanics – Chemistry – Character]
Italian origin such as [ Zucchini – Gnocchi]
And it can be the same sound of / ʃ / in the French origin words such as
[Charade – Machine – Chef]
The sounds of -ed endings: - /ɪd/, /t/ and /d/
The past simple tense and past participle of all regular verbs end in -ed. In addition, many adjectives are made
from the past participle and so end in -ed. But how can we differentiate between them?
1. The / ɪd / sound
If the last letter of the word is spelled with D or T, the ED is pronounced as a separate syllable
with an / ɪd / sound.
[Wanted – Waited – Needed – Folded]
2. The /t/ sound
If the last consonant of the word is voiceless, then the ED is pronounced as a /t/. Be careful not to
create an extra syllable or / ɪd / sound.
[Helped – Looked – Sniffed – Laughed]
3. The /d/ sound
If the last letter of the words ends in a voiced consonant (or sound), then the ED is pronounced
like a D (without creating another syllable)
[Called – Cleaned – Offered – Damaged]
The letter (D)
the letter (D) has some cases also like
1. When the sound d comes between 2 vowels
In this case we can pronounce it like (lite d) or like the sound of the Arabic letter ( )رas these examples
(I don’t know – did I – asked about)
2. when the sound / d / comes after the sound / n / as in
(sand – and – hand)
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*Note: In this case we can either say the sound of / d / or drop it
The Light L /l/ and Dark L /ɫ/
The difference between the light l and the dark l is the shape of the tongue inside of the mouth
1. For the light L /l/ we take the front of the tongue and press it gently against the back of your teeth and
release it quickly
2. For the dark L /ɫ/ we just retract the back of the tongue toward the through
We use the light L /l/ if the L is at the beginning of the word or before a vowel at the middle of the word as
[Play – Close – Clean – allow – lost]
And We use the dark L /ɫ/ if the L is before a consonant or at the end of the word as
[Wall – help – girl – heal]
*Note: in connected speech if the dark L /ɫ/ is followed with word starts with a vowel it becomes a light L /l/
[The bowl is full of fruits]
The letter (C)
In English the letter ‘c’ is mostly pronounced as a /k/ sound. As in these examples
[Car – Cool – Cat – cut – carpet]
But We can also pronounce ‘c’ as an /s/ sound. When ‘c’ comes directly before the letters (‘e’, ‘I’ or ‘y’) we use
the /s/ sound
[city – cent – center – face – ice]
The letter (R)
1. the consonant sound of (R)
in the American accent is always pronounced the same.
We always pronounce it with a roll of the tongue as in these examples
[Run – Rest – Room – Race – Rain – Ring]
2. R-Colored Vowel Sound (R-controlled vowels)
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The letter (R) after a vowel sound in the same syllable it forms a new sound called R-Colored Vowel Sound.
and it’s a vowel sound like
/ ɝ / as in [Bird – Earth – Clerk – Firm – Curve – Dirt]
/ ɚ / as in [Answer – Author – Better – Border – Butter – Color]
/ ɪr / as in [appear – beard – beer – career – cashier – cereal]
/ ɛr / as in [airplane – America – anywhere – area – arrow – aware]
/ ɑr / as in [bar – bark – barn – car – card – carpet – cart]
/ ɔr / as in [born – cord – corn – course – door –floor]
/ aɪr / as in [tired – hire – wire – desire – require – admire]
*Remember: the sound of the letter R in these words will be dealt with as a vowel sound
The sound of (n) / ŋ /.
the sounds of / ŋ / and / n / can be made the same way but with little differences, we don’t touch the alveolar
ridge (the top of the mouth) with our tongue and we push all the air out of our nose.
We can find this sound in these 3 cases
1. When we have (ng) combination at the end of a word
We change the (ng) combination by the sound / ŋ /.
[Sing – Bring – Working – Playing – king – Along]
2. When the (ng) combination is the middle of a word
We only change the sound of /n/ by the sound /ŋ/ and we keep the /g/.
[Angel – Angry – Congress – English – Finger]
3. Whenever the sound /n/ precedes the sound /k/
We change the sound of /n/ by the sound /ŋ/.
[Bank – Drink– Ink– Junk – Monkey – Pink]
The letter (T)
the letter (T) has so many different rules of pronunciation in the American English accent here are they
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1. The sound of regular (T), / t /
This is the sound of the letter T in its normal way as in these examples
Time – market – tea – mate – tiny – test
2. The sound of (Tr), / tr /
This is the sound of the letter T when it’s followed by the letter R
In this case we find a sound between the (T) and (R) started to be different and goes a little near to the sound
of (ʃ) as these examples
Train – track – tree – trash – trap – trunk
3. The sound of Glottal 'T' (hiccup T), / ʔ /
This is the sound of (T) when it comes before unstressed syllables contain (n) like in these examples
Button – beaten – certain – forgotten – gotten – important
*Note: sometimes when the letter t comes at the end of a word, the sound before it is a vowel and after it a
word starts with a consonant vowel it can be also pronounced as a (hiccup T)
4. The Drop (T) (optional T)
This one is just the (T) when it comes after (N) like in these examples
Internet – Gentleman – wanted – winter
In these examples we can either say the sound of / t / or drop it
5. The sound of (flap T), / t̬ /
This is the sound of the letter T when it comes between 2 vowel sound
In this case we can pronounce it like (lite d) or like the sound of the Arabic letter ( )رas these examples
Water – bottom – little – butter – Gotta – writer
*Note: The letter (Y) is a semivowel so in some words that (T) Is between a vowel and (Y) it’s a (flap T) as in
these examples
Pretty – kitty – bitty – beauty – duty – pity
*Note: The letter (R) after a vowel sound in the same syllable it forms a new sound called
R-Colored Vowel Sound. so, the (T) when it comes after it and before a vowel it’s also a (flap T) as in these
examples
Party – Alerted – Article – Sorted – Vertical – Forty
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The linking
The linking between words is one of the most important rules of English pronunciation to sound like
a native speaker, so we sound faster, more fluent and more natural. And it can be done in many
cases
1. linking two consonants
1. linking the same consonants
you can link two words when the first word ends with a consonant sound and the next word
starts with the same sound
***** (C.) (C.) *****
In this case we will pronounce the two consonant sounds together as one sound. As in these
examples
[That time – red dress– cheap places– feel lucky]
*Note: sometimes the word ends with a vowel letter but the last sound is the consonant sound, in this case
we will also link. Like in these examples
[look cool – quite tall– nice sofa]
*important: take care that we don’t link /tʃ/ or /ʤ/ sounds. Like in these examples
[each choice – orange juice]
2. linking similar consonants
you can also link two of the similar consonant sound together to sound like one as in these
examples.
[cheese sandwich – breath through – need to – sleep better]
Here is a list of similar consonant sounds
Voiced /b/ /d/ /g/ /v/ ð /z/
voiceless /p/ /t/ /k/ /f/ Θ /s/
2. linking consonants to vowels
when the first word ends with a consonant sound and the second word starts with a vowel
sound.
***** (C.) (V.) *****
in this case we will pronounce the two words together as one word. As in these examples
[work out – ask about – such a – a lot of – fan of – for a]
In the above examples we will pronounce the two words as one.
*Note: sometimes the word ends with a vowel letter but the last sound is the consonant sound, in this case
we will also link. Like in these examples
[Come on – take off – smile and go – taste it – write about – lose a]
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3. linking vowels to vowels
when you have two word after each other and the first word ends with a vowel sound and
the second word starts with a vowel sound.
***** (V.) (V.) *****
In this case we will link between the two words with a new vowel sound either /j/ or /w/.
As in these following examples.
1. we use /j/ If the first vowel is said in the front of the mouth.
He ate the apple.
The older boy is strong.
We are happy on sunny afternoons.
2. we use /w/ If the first vowel is said in the back of the mouth.
Go inside before you over heat.
She went to Africa.
I want to go out to eat.
