MORE ABOUT VOWEL SOUNDS

Hi! It's me again - Professor Panda! I hope everyone is fine. Did you have fun over the Lunar New Year? I sure did!

Today I want to talk a little more about vowel sounds in English. I know just about everybody who comes to this blog is studying English as a second language - a language they want to speak in addition to the language spoken in their home or country. Even Mrs. Panda is studying English as a second language and she says our cat is learning it as well! I guess the kitty will speak three languages, Kitty, Kitty Japanese, and Kitty English! Busy cat!

Whenever we are learning a new and different language, how the language sounds, especially what sounds the vowels make is extremely important to us. Unfortunately, here in this blog, it's very hard to teach much about the actual sounds, especially in a way that you can practice them. But have no fear! I have some fun tools I am going to share with you, that can make learning and practicing English vowel sounds much easier and fun.

The first one is from an organization called fonetiks.org.They offer vowel sounds for 9 varieties of English and also 9 other languages. You can study vowel sounds for American English, British English, Irish English, and several other styles. And the offer the sounds that one vowel make, two vowels together, three vowels together, and several other kinds of sounds that you will encounter in speaking and listening to English, Just follow the link below, and then click on the kind of sounds you want to hear, like American English Single Vowel Sounds or British English Two Vowel Sounds and so on. A new page will open up. just place your cursor over the letters at the left and someone will pronounce the sound. To the right are examples of words with that particular sound.

http://www.fonetiks.org/

Now the second tool, and I think it is the best one, is an online dictionary. Actually, it's a lot of things, a full Webster's New World Dictionary, which is one of the best, a full Roget's Thesaurus, plus audio pronunciations for each word you look up in the dictionary. If you look up "dog" there will be a small icon at the top with the shape of a speaker. Click on it and you will hear the word. Also there are many examples of how the word is used. So this is a really useful thing to have and I hope you will use it often.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/

Just be a bit careful with both of these fun sites, not to have your computer sound up too loud or it might make it so you can't understand the word or the sound. If you experiment a little, you can figure it out! I did!!!!

Ok, that's it for today! Have lots of fun listening to and practicing making the vowel sounds you hear on these two sites and have fun finding new words in your new dictionary!

ENGLISH SOUNDS: PART I

ENGLISH SOUINDS: PART I

Hi! This is Professor Panda again! How are you? I hope everyone is well.

Today I want to cover just a few extremely basic points that might be of help to you in understanding both how to speak and how to write in English. I must apologize for the fact that some of what I will talk about is a bit “slanted” toward those who speak Japanese (Nihongo), but along with English, they are the languages I know best. I used to know some Vietnamese but over many years and lack of practice, I have forgotten 99% of what I learned. I hope sometime in the next couple of years, to return to Viet Nam and then I can get a bit of much needed practice!

Anyway, let’s get started and remember to have a good dictionary with you for this lesson.

Before I do however, I want to mention something that will be very helpful to you. When you are studying all the words and phrases and sentences in these lessons, make sure that you articulate (speak) aloud. In fact, it is really helpful if you read the entire lesson aloud. Try never to read these lessons silently. Perception of a sound is not the same as the production of a sound – thinking the sound is not the same as speaking the sound. Clear speaking (articulation) is the best way to make your brain recognize sounds as English sounds. Silent reading does not activate your brain, speaking aloud does. I assure you that you will make much faster progress this way.

Consonants

Ok, the first things I want to talk about are consonants, which are simply speech sounds that are characterized by constriction or obstruction of the airflow at various points in the mouth or throat when talking. For example: “t” is a consonant because in order to pronounce it, you use the tongue to block airflow at the edge of the mouth between the upper teeth and the gum.

What letters in English are consonants? As you will see in a minute, anything that is not a vowel (I know, I know, I’m a big help!)

Vowels

Vowels are speech sounds that are produced without any obstruction of airflow in the mouth. For example: “i” is a vowel because to pronounce it, you push air forward and out smoothly, without using your tongue.

Syllables

A syllable is a unit or part of spoken language that consists of:

• A vowel or vowel-like consant alone, or,



• A vowel or vowel-like consonant pronounced with one or more consonant sounds before or after
  

It is how words are divided when speaking. For example: the word consonant is divided into three syllables – con-so-nant. By looking up a word in your dictionary, you see that the word is broken down for you into syllables. Practice the word by slowly pronouncing each syllable slowly, and then you can increase speed until you are comfortable with how you are saying the word.


Sounds

Japanese is quite simple in comparison to English when it comes to sounds. Japanese has only 14 consonants and 5 vowels. English however has 24 consonants (which include the “semi-vowels “Y” and “w”) and even though English has only 5 vowels as well, it has at least 12 vowel sounds! It is much easier for and English speaker to speak Japanese sounds because they already exist in English; however, it is often a real struggle for Japanese speakers to master English pronunciation because they have to deal with many sounds that do not exist in Japanese!

Also, in Japanese, each syllable ends with a vowel and each syllable is considered to have the same “weight” or emphasis – Japanese syllables sound as though they have the same length. This is not quite the same in English, for example:

Karaoke – in Japanese the word has four syllables: Ka-ra-o-ke. In English the same word also has four syllables: car-rie-oh-key. You can already start to see a difference in pronunciation!

In Japanese, each syllable sounds as though it has exactly the same length as all the others. Each syllable is short and open. In English, syllables are not characterized by the same length – car-rie-oh-key. Pronounce both the Japanese word and the English word. With care, you can begin to hear the slight difference in length between “oh” and “key”. The same thing applies in other words like Eng-lish or Jap-a-nese. Can you hear the long “nese”?

Well, that’s enough for today! Next time we will discuss specific vowel sounds to help you along the way to pronouncing Western English. I’m a bit hungry now and need a snack! I think I’ll have a bit of panda soup! Would you like some?

Bye bye until next time!