Pronunciation and Process
One of the confusing things about KK is the ‘.’ under a sound symbol. What does it mean? We learn that words are broken into syllables, and each syllable must have one vowel sound. There are words in English in which we can make a consonant sound immediately after another […]
There are sounds (phonemes) in English that are more about the movement between two sounds than the two sounds themselves. Specifically, /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/, /e/, and /o/ (KK, as usual, although the first three are the same in IPA.) In some regional dialects and accents, the movement between the two sounds […]
The article “the” has two pronunciations. It can be either /ði/ or /ðə/. Most students were taught the rule for choosing the right pronunciation. Unfortunately, it’s easy to forget the most important part. Test yourself with these two examples: 1. the U.S. 2. the M.R.T. Which pronunciation should each be? […]
It always seems to be the short words which cause the greatest difficulty. The problem is not that they require more practice than longer or more complicated words, or (as sometimes happens) that their only vowel is reduced to a /ə/ in casual conversation, but because they look so easy […]
“She” is one of the most mispronounced English words in Taiwan. There are two issues. First, the tongue is usually in the wrong place when the /ʃ/ sound is pronounced. Most people use ˹ㄕ˼ instead, which (in Taiwan) is usually pronounced with the tip of the tongue down behind the […]