PRONUNCIATION B1

Pronunciation

B1

Contents

• Pronunciation of -s-endings
• The schwa sound /Ə/
• -ed pronunciation
• Incididunt ut labore et dolore
• Ut enim ad minim veniam

Pronunciation of -s endings

There are three ways to pronounce the ‘s’ endings on the 3rd person form of present tense verbs and plural nouns: /s/, /z/ and /ɪz/

How do you know what the pronunciation of ‘s’ endings is? Is it /s/, /z/ or /ɪz/? The pronunciation depends on the final sound – not letter – of the word. For example, place ends in an ‘e’, but the final sound is ‘s’: /pleɪs/.

Pronunciation of -s endings

Study these examples:

/s/ unvoiced ending (no vibration)

/z/ voiced ending (with vibration)

/iz/ sibilant ending

1. walks
2. tests
3. boots
4. laughs

1. kings
2. dreams
3. goes
4. days

1. washes
2. kisses
3. changes
4. boxes

Pronunciation of -s endings

Now do this exercise on the pronunciation of ‘s’ endings. Based on the examples above, try to decide what endings these words have. Is it /s/, /z/ or /ɪz/?

push, belong, seem, freeze, book, read, repeat, fix, rain, jump, garage, bag, dance, call, prize, cap, see, age, love, cliff, drink, rob, cough /kɒf/, boss, visit, amaze, look, sandwich, snow

REMEMBER

SSSSSS ZZZZZZ /ɪz/ like a snake like a bee sounds like ‘is’

The schwa sound /Ə/

The schwa sound is represented by a /Ə/ in the Phonetic Alphabet (like an upside down ‘e’ or an ‘e’ too lazy to sit up!) It takes very little time to say in a word – so little that we, on occasion, lazily skip right over it when saying a word (e.g. the second ‘o’ in ‘chocolate’ or the first ‘e’ in ‘different’) Schwa only appears in unstressed syllables. In multi-syllable words, the syllable with the schwa sound is less prominent than the stressed syllables. Example: In “banana,” the first and last syllables contain schwa (bə-NA-nə), while the middle syllable is stressed.

The schwa sound /Ə/

Words with a common schwa representation:

a – comma, salad, alphabet, amount, thousand e – elephant, carpet, taken, telephone i – cousin, animal, pencil, easily, accident o – carrot, astronaut, dinosaur u – upon, supply, medium y – vinyl, syringe

The schwa sound /Ə/

Now practice with these exercises:

https://wordwall.net/resource/7408371 https://wordwall.net/resource/21323457

The sound /ɜː/

This is the sound as in the words: her /hɜː/ work /wɜːk/ learn /lɜːn/The /ɜ:/ sound is normally spelled with the letters:

• ‘er’ as in person /ˈpɜːsən/
• ‘or’ as in word /wɜːd/
• ‘ur’ as in turn /tɜːn/
• ‘ir’ as in first /fɜːst/

The sound /ɜː/

Which words correspond to these pronunciations? /ˈɜːli/ /ˈsɜːvɪs/ /wɜːld/ /gɜːl/ /rɪˈsɜːtʆ/

The sound /ɜː/

In these tongue twisters some words containing the sound /ɜː/ have been transcribed phonetically. Replace the phonetics with the word containing that sound.

1. A warm wɝːm walks to wɝːk.
2. The fɝːst bɝːds I hɝːd wɝː the blackbirds.
3. Sure,sɝː, the ship’s sure shipshape, sɝː.

-ED PRONUNCIATION

The question is:

How do we pronounce the -ed

in 3 different ways:

1. /d/
2. /t/
3. /id/

The answer is:

-ED PRONUNCIATION

Note that it is the sound that is important, not the letter or spelling. For example, fax ends in the letter x but the sound /s/; like ends in the letter e but the sound /k/.

-ED PRONUNCIATION

Is it /t/, /d/ or /ɪd/?

look, jump, land, play, add, push, mend, hate, fill, miss, believe, avoid, drop, visit, snow, like, love, crowd, dance, walk, record, rain, study, hug, cough, pull, end

-ED PRONUNCIATION

Practice

Alicia Yangüela García

/ˈɜːli/ early /ˈsɜːvɪs/ service /wɜːld/ world /gɜːl/ girl /rɪˈsɜːtʆ/ research

• /t/ looked jumped pushed missed dropped liked danced walked coughed

• /d/ played filled believed snowed loved rained hugged pulled

• /id/ landed added mended hated avoided crowded recorded studied ended

A warm worm walks to work. The first birds I heard were the blackbirds. Sure,sir, the ship’s sure shipshape, sir.