The Sounds of American English General Information to Get Started
In this American English Pronunciation
video, we’re going to go over a few
general concepts concerning the sounds
of American English.
Before you study the Sounds of
American English specifically, let’s go
over a few general concepts.
First, voiced vs. unvoiced sounds. A
voiced sound is a sound that uses the
voice, uh. An unvoiced sound is a sound
that only uses air, hh. Uh, hh. Every
vowel and diphthong in American
English is voiced; we engage the vocal
cords to make a sound: aa, ur, oy.
Consonants can either be voiced or
unvoiced. There is a set of
consonants—paired consonants—
where both sounds in each pair have
the same mouth position. What makes
them different is one is voiced and one
is unvoiced. For example, pp and bb.
Can you tell which one is voiced?
Which has the vocal sound in it, uh? It’s
the B consonant, bb. Pp, bb.
The rest of the consonants are not
paired. They have a unique mouth
position. Out of these consonants, only
one is unvoiced, the H consonant. Hh.
The rest are all voiced, for example,
mm, ww, ll.
Second, let’s talk about nasal sounds. A
sound is nasal when the soft palate is
lowered, allowing air to pass through
the nasal passages. Some languages
have nasal vowels. English has none.
English has just three nasal consonants:
nn, mm, and ng. If your native
language has a lot of nasal vowels, you’ll
have to be careful when speaking
English.
When you’re working on the nasal
consonants, I encourage you not to
worry about lowering the soft palate.
I’ve been working with students many
years and I’ve never found someone
unable to do this. It happens naturally.
The main concern is making sure the
rest of the sounds in American English
don’t have a nasal quality, have a closed
soft palate.
You’ll notice in my videos, that I use symbols
of the International Phonetic Alphabet.
This system was developed to write the
sounds of spoken languages. In
American English, certain sounds are
spelled lots of different ways. So having
one symbol to represent one sound is
very helpful. I suggest using the
International Phonetic Alphabet any
time you’re studying the pronunciation
of a foreign language. In this set of
videos, you’ll get acquainted with the
symbols of the sounds of American
English.
Finally, a note on stress. The stress of a
syllable affects everything about the
syllable, including the sounds. Most of
the length in syllables comes from the
vowel and diphthongs, so as you learn
these, you’ll learn how to make them
sound both stressed and unstressed.
It’s important to get used to the idea of
making some syllables longer and
clearer, and other syllables shorter and
less clear. This concept is one of the
foundations of American English.
Now you’re ready to dive in and study
the Sounds of American English.