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Thank you - I'm glad you found it useful!

You're most welcome!

I am a firm believer in teaching CORRECT English pronunciation - using one clear pronunciation model. It's much better to tackle the "difficult" sounds and teach them clearly and properly than to accept the "anything goes as long as it's roughly intelligible" which has sadly become the norm and which has led to all sorts of pronunciations which are barely intelligible in the name of so-called "international English".

I deliberately leave out all regional pronunciations and concentrate only on standard southern English. This is because, while the consonants of native-speaker English are stable, the entire system of vowels is not. We have my (standard) accent, Northern English, Scottish, US, Australia, etc., etc., etc... The list goes on and on and must be immensely confusing for learners who do not know what to aim at. While for the purposes of LISTENING COMPREHENSION learners need to be exposed to a wide variety of accents so they can cope with this variability, I believe that for PRONUNCIATION teaching we need ONE CLEAR MODEL to aim at - Standard Southern British English. If I am learning Korean, for example, I don't want to be confused by the endless list of dialects - I just want to know what to aim at for maximum intelligibility and acceptance, and the same goes for English.

@@pronounceenglishaccurately Thank you. I do think your videos are clear and well made. I only brought it up because you noted the instablility of the ʊə diphthong.

The phonETic transcription [r] (in square brackets) represents an alveolar trill. The phonEMic transcription /r/ (inside slants) represents the abstract concept of the /r/ phoneme in English, and includes a number f idiosyncratic (allophonic) variants. In standard RP it is a retroflex approximant, as I teach here, but in some accents it can be a trill). See my lesson on phonetic vs phonemic transcription: th-cam.com/video/IoQkIDVaU2I/w-d-xo.html

No, the starting point is lower and wider [a]. /ɑ:/ is not that extremely low and wide.

@@richardstibbardvoiceover I've read the wiki article on diphthongs, and it has a spreadsheet of the exact sounds of this diphthong depending on the accent. Could you explain why is it given? I thought I started to understand something...

@@dimaminiailo3723 Can you give me the link to the article so I know we're both talking about the same one.

@@pronounceenglishaccurately it's the article 'IPA chat for English dialects'. sorry for unintentional deceiving

@@dimaminiailo3723 That chart goes into detailed representations of the sounds which are possible in many accents of English. So for example to take the /r/ phoneme, it lists [ɹʷ, ɹ, ɾ, r, ɻ, ɹ̥ʷ, ɹ̥, ɾ̥, ɻ̊] and [ʋ] But for the purposes of learning English pronunciation, only the retroflex approximant [ɹ] is to be recommended - all the others are idiosyncratic. Because in phonemic transcription we do not attempt to represent every phonetic detail, we use the/r/ symbol as it is more convenient. This, along with a description and examples to show that this represents a retroflex approximant, is sufficient to describe the target sound.

It would be difficult to help here in messaging. Do you want to have a free lesson over video? If so, go to www.pronounceenglishaccurately.com where you can arrange a lesson at a time to suit!

Sure why not? Thank you I've always had trouble pronouncing my rs because of my confusion with both those similar sounds.

Thank you so much - it means a lot to me!

You're most welcome, Hussein!

Yes indeed.

Working on it...

Should be fine! As long as there's a hissing sound between tongue and teeth.

It's not just /dʒ/ - the "voiced" consonants other than /m, n/ and /l/in English are often not strongly voiced, just pronounced weaker than their voiceless counterparts, hence the alternative name lenis (weak) for the "voiced" consonants and fortis (strong) for the voiceless ones. Also, a powerful cue to whether a consonant is fortis or lenis is the lengthening of the vowel before a lenis consonant and the clipping short of a vowel before a fortis one (pre-fortis clipping). So for example, the vowel in "etch" is much shorter than the one in "edge" even though they are the same phoneme, /e/. I hope that helps and sorry for not replying sooner!

@@pronounceenglishaccurately Do you mean 'not strong voiced' consonant at the end of word can be pronounced weaker and voiceless (vocal cords didn't vibrate)?

Yes, for all the voiced consonants, reduce the power of the consonant so it has no puff of air or noisy release, and stretch out the length of the preceding vowel. With long vowels before a voiced consonant the vowel becomes VERY long, and even short vowels are a bit longer before a voiced consonant - they are clipped off before voiceless ones. These factors, vowel length and cutting down the power of the consonant when it is voiced, are more important than the vocal fold vibration, which is there but harder to notice and control.

@@pronounceenglishaccurately Thank you so much!

@TaiLe-dr5ve You're most welcome. Do get back with any further questions, and I'll try to answer more quickly next time!

You're most welcome, Karen!

You're most welcome!

That's a very interesting question. (So-called) "voiced" stops are also distinguished from their voiceless counterparts in a large number of other ways in addition to voicing or the lack of it. Most salient among these is the presence or absence of aspiration, the strong puff of air present at the end of voiceless stops but absent from voiced ones. Other factors include a much shorter voice onset time (VOT) after voiced consonants, VOT being the time between the end of the stop and the start of the following vowel. You can try this by whispering "pat" and "bat" and you should be able to feel the presence and absence of aspiration and difference in VOT. Before a voiceless/tense/fortis consonant the vowel is also clipped short (pre-fortis clipping), whereas it is drawn out before a voiced/lax/lenis consonant - another audible cue. Listen to the vowels in "feet" and "feed" to verify this - although phonemically the same sound, phonetically the vowel in "feed" is much longer. Another very important cue is tenseness, (corresponding with voiceless sounds, aka "fortis" or "strong") and laxness (voiced sounds, aka "lenis" or "weak"). Try whispering "feel" and "veal" and see how much more strongly the /f/ is articulated vs. the almost inaudible /v/. An extreme example is the voiced 'th' sound, /ð/, which in whispered speech almost disappears. So, the answer is that nothing happens in isolation in speech production - there are many physical aspects which contribute to what we perceive as a phonemic contrast.

@@pronounceenglishaccurately Thank you very much for your detailed answer! You don't know how long I've been looking for this answer, but nobody had been able to answer it so far.

You're most welcome!

Good luck with your exam!

The phonetic representation of the English /r/ phoneme is [ɹ], representing a postalveolar approximant. We are working with phonemic symbols, representing only phonemic contrasts. For this, /r/ is used. Notice the use of [ ] brackets for phonetic detail vs / / slants for phonemic contrasts.

The tongue touches the alveolar ridge - otherwise there would be no consonant sound - but allowing the air to rush noisily through between the tongue and the alveolar ridge.

/tʃ/ and /dʒ/ start with stops, /t/ and /d/ respectively, followed by the fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/. The exact position of the stop component is not the same as for the /t/ and /d/ phoneme, though - it is postalveolar, in the same place as the fricative, rather than alveolar.

It's the tongue tip - it contacts the roof of the mouth just behind the alveolar ridge, in postalveolar position.

@@pronounceenglishaccurately Thank you for your reply/ I have been thought you don't touch the roof of the mouth when saving /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ and hats what makes them different from/ch/ and /dg/what is the difference between then? Thanks!