The Beauty of Music (for Practice)

Finding ways of practicing pronunciation can be difficult. Simply speaking and listening again and again, while effective, is sometimes boring; also, it is hard to do while traveling or on the go. 

A good way of practicing pronunciation is to do something you are probably doing already: listen to music. Find some music (in English) that you like listening to, and listen to it. That simple.

Well, not quite that simple. Here are a few rules to help your music listening be much more helpful.

1. Listen to music that is slower than faster. Very fast hip-hop, rap, or rock will not help you as much as slower music. Some rap or hip-hop is nice and slow, and the words are easy to follow. The same goes for rock. Pick music that is easy to listen to, and easy to follow.

2. Download and print off the lyrics. Keep them with you, and use them to help you sing along. Memorize the lyrics, so that when each song starts you can sing along using the correct words.

3. Sing along, all the time. Try to match the tone, rhythm, and prosody of the singer. Record yourself singing, and listen to yourself to see how well you got it.

4. Sing lots of different songs, and different genres of music. Sing soft songs, hard songs, fast songs, and slow songs. Sing happy songs, and sad songs. Every song you memorize and can sing well will help your pronunciation. 

If you make a regular practice of this, you will notice that your listening ability and pronunciation will become much better, as well as your prosody. You will begin to feel more confident, and seem much more fluent, to the people around you. Here is a list of song that might be good ones to start with:

Folk Songs
1. Blowin’ in the Wind - Bob Dylan
2. Sounds of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel
3. The Water is Wide - Traditional

Rock Songs
1. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
2. Walk This Way - Run-D.M.C.
3. American Pie - Don McLean

Modern Rock Songs
1. With Arms Wide Open - Creed
2. Radioactive - Imagine Dragons
3. Handlebars - Flobots

Cheers!

Lesson Three: The Basics of the Symbol /b/

The lesson will be about the sound /b/. It is next to /p/, in the "Bilabial" column, and the "Plosive" row.

Again, a quick reminder that the letter 'b' is not the same as the symbol /b/.

Like the symbol /p/, /b/ is a bilabial plosive. It is made by putting both lips together, and then releasing a small puff of air.

That is a very important thing to remember: /b/ and /p/ are very similar. To master /b/ and /p/, you have to realize how they are similar, and how they are different.

Say the following minimal pairs:

1. bat     pat
2. pit     bit
3. bin    pin

Say them very slow. Do you notice how your mouth moves in almost the same way for both sounds?
There are several differences in these sounds, however the largest difference is in their voicing.

/p/ is a unvoiced sound. /b/ is a voiced sound.

To feel the difference, put your hand on your throat, and very slowly say the following words:

1. pot     pot     pot
2. bot     bot     bot

If you are saying the /p/ correctly, your throat should not vibrate until after you open your mouth.
If you are saying the /b/ correctly, your throat should vibrate before you open your mouth. 

If you do not feel a significant difference between these sounds, you probably found something you need to work on. Many languages do not distinguish between these sounds, or have significant differences from English. Some examples are Hindi, Urdu, and Arabic. However, it is likely that no matter your native language, you will have some minor differences with English, and you should still practice the distinction.

Voice Onset Time: Differences between /b/ and /p/

To have a complete understanding of the primary difference between these sounds, we need to review voice onset time. Remember that VOT is when your throat starts vibrating in regard to when you open your mouth.

With /p/, you start vibrating your throat after you open your mouth:

pot   pot   pot   pot

With /b/, you start vibrating your throat before you open your mouth:

bot   bot   bot   bot

To practice the difference, try to exaggerate the difference.

1. p.........ot
2. mmmbot

Conclusion

The symbol /b/ is a voiced, bilabial plosive. The voicing starts before you mouth opens, and continues. This is unlike /p/, where the voicing starts after you open your mouth.

Practice

Try to pay particular attention to when the voicing starts. Listen to me say it, and record yourself saying it as well. Compare the two.

1. bite     bite     bite     bite     bite
2. boat    boat    boat    boat    boat
3. about     about     about     about
4. bring     bring     bring     bring

I'll post a more extensive worksheet soon. Practice, practice, practice!

Lesson Two - Minimal Pairs

This lesson will discuss a very important idea that I will use again and again. This is the idea of a 'minimal pair'.

Minimal means small; a pair means two of something.

A minimal pair is two things that are very similar, with only one difference.

In pronunciation, it means two words that have only one sound difference. Here are some examples:

     - fat        bat

     - eaten   Eden

     - not       nog

In the first example, the first sound is different. In the second example, the middle sound is different; in the last, the last sound is different. 

The concept of a minimal pair is very important. This is because English students often say two different sounds the same. That can be a big problem.

For example, some English students often say /p/ and /b/ like /p/. So the sentence "I bet that because the boy is bad, his mother's heart is broken" sounds to an English speaker like "I pet that pecause the poy is pad, his mother's heart is proken". This can be very confusing to the listener.

Another example would be a student who confuses /ɹ/ (the 'r' sound) and /l/, who might say the sentence "Look to the right at the really rude guy" as "Rook to the light at the leally lude guy."

(Note: It is important to understand that ALL language groups have minimal problems; this is the basic problem that people need to overcome when they learn English. .)

The first step to correcting your pronunciation is to learn what problems you have. Then, and only then, can you move on to correct those problems.

The biggest problems you have in pronunciation are likely to be minimal pair problems. This website will help you find which minimal pairs you have issues with, and will hopefully help you overcome those problems. 

Below is a list of common minimal pairs. Read them each slowly, and then close your eyes and say them again. Do they sound different or the same? The should sound different; if they don't, maybe you just found the first thing to work on!

     - Light     Right

     - Beer     Tear

     - Pray      Pry

     - Affect    Effect

     - Ship      Sheep

     

This is a very small list; there are literally thousands of such minimal pairs. Keep you eyes out for more of them! Learning to hear the difference and say the difference is a important step to correcting your pronunciation.

Lesson One: The Basics of the Consonant /p/

The very first consonant that we will look at is /p/. If you look at the IPA chart, it is the first symbol listed, and is under the column "Bilabial", and in the row "Plosive".

Remember, that the letter 'p' is not the same as the IPA symbol /p/.

Lets look a little closer at those two different descriptions "Bilabial" and "Plosive".

Bilabial

The words Bilabial has two different parts: "bi-" and "labial".

"Bi-" is a common prefix that means "two". It is also found in the words bicycle (two wheels), bilingual (two languages), and biannual (two years), as well as many other words.

"Labial" means lips.

So, what do you get when you put "bi-" and "labial" together? Two lips. A bilabial sound is a sound made by pushing both lips together.

If you say the word 'part', you will notice that to say it you have to push your lips together. Look at the following words:

     - part
     - make
     - beat

All of these words start with a bilabial sound.

Plosive

/p/ is also a plosive. A plosive is a sound that uses a little puff of air. If you hold your hand close to your mouth and say 'part', you will feel a little little puff of air at the beginning of the word. Think of the word plosive as being 'explosive', like a little bomb.  

Summary

So, the symbol /p/ represents a bilabial plosive, made by pushing both lips together and then letting out a small puff of air. Next, we will talk about what it means that /p/ is voiceless, and how /p/ is used in English.

The English /p/ 

Many languages have the sound /p/. However, if you want to learn to pronounce the letter /p/ in English, you need to learn how the English /p/ is different than the /p/ in other languages.

Voice Onset Time (VOT)

Now we are going to learn about voice onset time (VOT). This might sound complicated, but take a deep breath, let it out, and listen carefully. VOT is a very important principle that is necessary to learn about if you want to perfect your English pronounciation.

Recall the two different types of sounds: 'voiced' (your throat vibrates) and 'voiceless' (your throat doesn't vibrate).

Now think of the word 'how'. You can say the word 'how' very slowly, like 'hhhhhhhhhhow'. If you feel your throat while you say it slowly, you will notice that the vibrations do not start until you get to the 'ow' part of 'how'. If you just say the 'hhhhh' part, your throat will never vibrate.

Now say the word 'part'. If you say it very slowly, you will notice that at some point right after the /p/, your throat will start vibrating. However, if you say it correctly (listen to me say it), when you first open your mouth your throat is not vibrating. Here is how it works:

     1. You push your lips together.
     2. You open your mouth, and let out a puff of air.
     3. You breath out for a very small length of time.
     4. You start vibrating your throat.

Keep saying part (or listening to me say it) until you can feel all of these individual steps.

As you can see, there is a length of time between when you open your mouth (step 2) and you start vibrating your throat (step 4). This gap is called the Voice Onset Time (VOT). Whew, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Now, you are probably wondering why this is important? It is important because the VOT of Plosives are different in every language. If you do not use the correct VOT, your /p/ might sound like a /b/, or even a /m/ or /n/. It is very important to use the correct VOT for each letter.

How do you learn the right VOT? Practice, practice, practice. This Lesson will have a worksheet you can use to work on it, and I recommend you listen to the audio file and follow along on a regular basis, until you are certain that you have it right.

Conclusion

The symbol /p/ is a voiceless bilabial plosive, which means it is made by pushing the lips together, opening them with a puff of air, and not vibrating your throat while you do it.

Practice 

Listen carefully to me say the following words, and try to say them along with me:

     1. part             part            part            part
     2. peel             peel            peel             peel
     3. panda          panda        panda         panda
     4. police           police        police         police

Please view the attached worksheet to practice more! Practice, practice, practice!

Digging Deeper into the IPA Chart

Before we begin learning letters, we need to have a better understanding of the IPA chart.

First, the symbols on the IPA chart are not letters. The problem with letters is that they can represent a lot of different sounds. For example, look at the letter 'e' following words:

     - pen
     - enough
     - bide

The letter 'e' has a different sound in both the first one and two, and in the third word, 'bide', the 'e' is completely silent!

So when we learn about the sounds of English, I will not talk about "letters". We will instead talk about 'symbols'. Here are the same words written in IPA symbols:

     - /pen/
     - /ɪˈnʌf/
     - /baɪd/

As you can see, the 'e' in the first word is represented by the symbol /e/, by the symbol 'ɪ' in the second word, and isn't even shown in the third word. 

If you are confused, don't worry! Just remember that letters of a word are different than IPA symbols.

How to Read the IPA Chart - Consonants

If you look at the IPA chart, you will see a table on top that represents all of the consonants of English. On the top, you will see a row that says "Bilabial, Labiodental, Dental" etc. Each of these words describe a different part of the mouth. 

On the left side of the chart there is a column that says "Plosive, Nasal, Trill" etc. Each of these words describes how the sound is said. Think of the different
between the first sounds in the words "how" and "bear". Your mouth is doing very different things to make those sounds.

We will talk about these lists in greater detail later; what is important to remember is that IPA symbols each represent only one sound, and the position on the chart shows where in the mouth it is made, and how it is made.

There is just one last thing to talk about before we can start discussing the individual symbols.

Voiced vs. Voiceless

Look at the chart and find the box that represents the "Bilabial Plosives".

If you look closely, you will see that two different symbols: /p/ and /b/. So what is the difference between these symbols?

The difference is that /p/ is a so-called "voiceless" sound, and /b/ is a "voiced" sound. 

What does that mean?

To understand the difference, put you hand lightly on your throat. Now start talking. When you are talking, you can feel your throat vibrating. When you stop talking, the vibration stops.

If you speak slowly, you will notice that some sounds do not vibrate your throat when you say them. For example, say the word 'how'. You will notice that the /h/ in the word does not vibrate you throat. That sound is a voiceless sound.

Here are some words that start with voiceless sounds:

     - how
     - teach
     - fish
     - create

Here are some words that start with a voiced sounds:

     - ouch
     - ditch
     - veteran
     - great

Conclusion

Here are the important points to remember:

     1. IPA symbols are not letters. IPA symbols represent one sound, while letters often represent a lot of different sounds.

     2. The location on the IPA chart shows where a sound is produced (the top row), and how it is produced (the left column).

     3. If there are two symbols in one box on the chart, the first symbol is a voiceless sound, and the second is a voiced sound. Voiceless sounds do not vibrate your throat, while voiced sounds do.

Delay

There will be a slight delay in getting more content up on this site. My wife is 9 months pregnant, and is due any day.

Cheers!

Introduction to the IPA Alphabet

In this blog, I will frequently be using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), pictured below.

International Phonetic Alphabet

This is much better than just using the alphabet, because in English, one letter of the alphabet can have more than one sound. Don't be worried about how difficult it looks; its not that complicated, and many of the symbols on that chart are not even used in English! 

I will go through all of the English sounds on the chart one by one. Each symbol will be a single lesson. I will also give lessons on the different sections of the chart, to help students understand it better.

Cheers!