English Phonetics Diary #4

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     For my fourth Phonetics Diary entry I decided to explore the mmmEnglish YouTube channel. The video that I decided to write about was about "English Pronunciation Training | Improve Your Accent & Speak Clearly". The title caught my attention and made me curious about the new information I could still learn about pronunciation. In this post I wanted to share what I learned from the video and my general reflection on this resource. 

    The presenter started the video by saying that she believes that there's two things needed to significantly improve one's accent and clear pronunciation - a native speaker and knowledge of the IPA alphabet. Spelling can be misleading when trying to learn pronunciation. The same letter can be pronounced in different ways depending on the word. For example, the letter 'c' is voiced differently in words like 'cup' (/kʌp/) and 'place' (/pleɪs/) or 'chocolate' (/ˈtʃɒklət/) and 'ache' (/eɪk/). Thanks to the IPA system we can shift focus from letters to sounds, where every sound has a unique symbol. Sometimes the issue is not even with the letters themselves, but even chunks of letters. For example, the words 'thought' (/θɔːt/), 'though' (/ðəʊ/), and 'cough' (/kɒf/), all have 'ough' in them, but this chunk is read differently in all 3 of the words. This is the reason why knowing IPA is very beneficial when wanting to learn proper pronunciation. It can take a while to learn, since there are more different sound markings than there are letters, but it will come in useful. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet, but 44 different sounds in the IPA. There are 5 vowel letters, but 20 vowel sounds, including 8 diphthongs. We also have 24 consonant sounds - 9 unvoiced (sound made only by air - moving from the back of your mouth, through and out your lips) and 15 voiced (sound made by the vocal cords).  

    Though a lot of the information in this video has already been covered in our English Phonetics classes, I think there is never enough practice and repetition. I would highly recommend this resource for any beginner trying to learn about phonetics or anyone who needs to refresh their memory. It's a short video that one can always come back to in order to revise their knowledge. Mastering the IPA takes time, which is why I definitely benefitted from having a refresher. I loved how in the video we could see, but also hear, all the sounds individually and clearly. It's a great one-stop video for all the IPA basics, while also covering some very intriguing examples and anecdotes. I would highly recommend checking this video out!

   



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