English How to Pronounce G and K consonants American Accent
The G and K consonant sounds. These two sounds
are paired together because they take the
same mouth position. K is unvoiced, kk, meaning,
only air passes through your mouth. And G
is voiced, gg, gg, meaning, you’re making
a sound with your vocal cords. These consonants
are stop consonants, which means there are
two parts to the sound. First, a stop of the
airflow, and second, a release. To stop the
airflow, the back part of the tongue reaches
up and touches the soft palate, cutting off
the air, gg. The second part: the tongue pull
away and the air is released, gg, kk. The
lip position of these consonants is influenced
by the sound that comes next. For example,
the word gas. The sound that comes after the
G is the ‘aa’ as in ‘bat’ vowel, gas, and
you can see the corners of the lips are pulling
back. The top lip is pulling up, exposing
the top teeth, gas, gas, even before the G
is made. Another example, grape, grape, you
can see the lips taking the rounded position
of the R, grape, even before the G sound is
started. Here we see the g/k consonant sounds
on the right compared with the mouth at rest.
Here parts of the mouth are drawn in. The
soft palate is raised on this sound, and the
tongue stretches in the back all the way up
towards it, touching the raised soft palate.
The tip of the tongue remains down and forward,
lightly touching the bottom front teeth. Sample
words: cap/gap, curl/girl, kill/gill. Sample
sentence: Chris carried the gray crate to
the gate. Now you will see this sentence up
close and in slow motion, both straight on
and from an angle, so you can really study
how the mouth moves when making this sound.
Chris with the C-R so the lips are taking
the position of the R as the back of the tongue
is raised. Chris, teeth together and up towards
the front for the S. Carried, there you see
the front part of the tongue coming down as
the back is raised. Tongue tip up for the
D. Tongue tip through the teeth for the TH,
the. Gray, again, the lips are taking the
position of the R as the back of the tongue
is raised. And here again, crate, tongue is
back touching the soft palate and the lips
are rounded for the R. Tongue tip up for the
T. To the, tongue tip quickly through the
teeth for the TH in the. Gate, you see the
front part of the tongue as it is coming back
down from it being raised in the back for
the G consonant sound in gate. Chris, again,
you see the tongue moving back, but the lips
are coming forward for the R position. Chris.
Tongue forward again for the S and the teeth
together. Carried, lips form the R position.
Tongue tip up for the D. And through the teeth
for the TH. The gray, again the tongue is
moving back to raise at the back while the
lips form the R. Crate, watch the tongue move
back as the lips close over it. Crate. Tongue
up and teeth together to make the T. To the,
tongue tip through the teeth for the, gate.
Now here the back of the tongue is raised,
touching the soft palate, and then the tongue
tip comes forward to make the T sound. That’s
it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.