Practicing 3 Vowel Sounds in Head-Hat-Hot

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The English spelling system has 5 letters that represent the vowels  A-E-I-O-U (and sometimes Y), but when talking, these vowels have at least 20-different vowel sounds!

Pronouncing English vowels are defined by changes made with the tongue, the degree of muscle tension (tense or relaxed), and lip movements. These tiny little changes make a BIG difference successfully communicating your intended words.  For example, the comparisons below show that if  you try to pronounce a word with one vowel sound, ex: head,  but pronounce the word with a different sound, the desired word may sound more like ‘had’, ‘hat’, or ‘hot’.   This week’s podcast will help you hear the differences and give you words to practice saying the differences.

Listen to Ep. 26  Pronouncing English With Pam Podcast

 

/ɛ/ This is a relaxed sound. Our mouth is open slightly, lips are neutral.
pen, men, slept, head, better

/æ/ tense sound (mouth open). lips are back slightly.
fast, had, slap, clap, man, pan, Pam

/ɑ/ tense sound (mouth is open the most), lips are forward a little or neutral.
stop, daughter, fought

Can you say these two words differently?

/ɛ/ – /æ/
head -had
men -man
guess- gas
said- sad
slept -slapped
end- and
then- than

/ɑ/- /æ/
hot-hat
mop-map
rock-rack

How did you do? Do you have difficulty hearing the difference between words?  Tell me in the comments below!

 

Pronouncing WO – Two Ways!

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Wow! This week was International Women’s Day.  Let’s celebrate all of the women in our lives and their achievements. Now is the time to raise awareness against bias and make an effort to take action for equality.
In honor of all women in the world, please enjoy this lesson about pronouncing the words ‘woman’ and ‘women’.

Pronouncing the W in English requires the lips to be fully rounded and pushed forward a bit. Many of my students are able to form their lips correctly, but attaching the next vowel sound is the difficult part. In this lesson you will practice W +  (two different) vowels:

  • W + /ʊ​​​​/ the sound in the word “put”​​​ (listen to me on the recording) as in the word WOMAN
  • W + /ɪ/ the sound in the word “it” (listen to me on the recording) as in the word WOMEN.

And finally pay attention to the last syllable in both of the words:

  • woMAN and woMEN are pronounced the same even though they are spelled differently! Pronounce this reduced syllable as if you are saying “MIN”

Mastering the P Sound

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Pronouncing the P Sound

Sure, it’s easy to say the /p/ sound, but if you would like to pronounce the sound the American English way, then this lesson is for you.  Do you speak English using a different accent than American English?   You may be using less air than you should be while trying to pronounce words that have the P in it. This lesson will help you understand that if the P is not pronounced with enough air, it will sound like a B. My name would sound like “Bam!” instead of Pam, or the listener may hear “Boar” (a pig!) instead of the word ‘poor’.

The tongue twister in this lesson: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?  That’s 18 P’s to practice!

Please comment below and tell me if this P sound is easy (or hard) for you to pronounce using the American English way.  Include your native language. I would love to hear from you!

 

Pronouncing English With Pam Videos

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Learning how to pronounce sounds and use the American English melody takes time and patience! Here are some videos to help you understand commonly difficult words and concepts. Check out our YouTube channel! Our latest video is about pronouncing the vowel sound O for the word FOCUS. This is important to learn especially if you are using this word in your profession. If the sound O is not pronounced fully, it may be embarrassing.

We Celebrated! How To Pronounce Past Tense

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Today we Celebrate Our Anniversary! And yesterday we “celebrated”!  Since we are always talking about past events, let’s learn how to pronounce the -ED using the American English Pronunciation.  With regular verbs, we add an -ed to the verb to change the word to mean something that has happenED in the past. There are a few different ways to pronounce the ED sound, so to simplify this for you, here are the 2 most important pronunciation changes:

  1. If the verb ends in a T or a D, you will add an extra syllable at the end.

That extra syllable will sound like “did”

pound + ed (pounded) will sound like “poun-did” and wait + ed (waited) will sound like “wai + did”

2.   All other verbs will have a small sound at the end of the word.

cook + ed = “cookt”

play + ed = “playd”

Listen to this lesson and practice repeating after me.

And by the way, Happy Anniversary. It’s been 4 years since I have been recording my podcast. And thank you for listening!

Please comment below about  verbs + ed that  you have questions about.

Pam is Moving!

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The Podcast that is! Pronouncing English With Pam Podcast is now on Spotify, iTunes, Google and more. Currently, updating each lesson for clear instructions and practice. I have over 150 podcasts to update, so each week, there should be plenty for you to listen to! Subscribe and share with your friends. Please contact me with your ideas for future lessons. As they say I am “all ears” for suggestions to make these lessons better for you.

I will be highlighting many of these lessons with additional information and behind the scenes fun facts. For now, listen to Episode 20 top 10 list of  words that are commonly mispronounced.  Let me know what you think!

Pronouncing the “it” States

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“You can never trust spelling to guide you with pronouncing English words”

Today’s lesson gives true meaning to this quote that I find myself repeating many times a day. The English spelling system is not consistent. One letter does not represent one sound.  Listen to the lesson about using the most popular vowel sound. Learn what it means to stress a syllable in the word and how to reduce syllables in a word. This lesson is 7 minutes long. Email me for the written lesson. Just write STATES in the subject line.  Pam@proaccentcoaching.com

 

My Personal Picks

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Time Flies When You’re Having Fun!

A New Year means New Beginnings. But for some reason I wanted to reflect back and review some of my favorite recordings, and tell you about the most popularly viewed recordings. I can’t believe it but the recording called, Ring, Ring Hello! currently has over 1,000 listeners. It’s been played in over 50 Countries. You never know what is going to become popular. Unless it’s stuck on constant replay-it must be a favorite somewhere!

Listen to My Personal Picks and you will hear my favorite lessons for you

If you’d like to see my playlists (and listen to all 98 lessons) LOOK HERE 

We have a whole new year to keep learning from each other.

Are you ready?

Oh No! Pronouncing O

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Pronunciation Roadblocks For Saying “O”        Can Vary

While many people are good at saying the first part of the sound, MOST do not say the crucial second part.  Everyone will wonder how you did it,  HERE IS THE KEY TO SOUNDING GREAT

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Use your voice like this pro!

Use Your Voice Like A Pro!

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Using Your Voice Like A Pro Learn how to stretch your voice and raise your pitch. This is the cornerstone of learning how to make your voice sound more natural and native to English. Raising your pitch while placing stress on words will help the listener hear what you are saying! First let’s learn how […]

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