It's good to know Phonetic Alphabet

First of all, you should know that the English spelling does not help us pronounce correctly. There are many words sharing the same spelling but with different pronunciation.  Many of you might guess from the spelling of some words and mispronounce the words by associating them with the words you have seen and are familiar with. For example, you see the word "mow" so you think of the word "now" and pronounce it with the same vowel sound "au", which makes it "mau".


 However, this is the wrong pronunciation because the vowel sound of "mow" is the same as the vowel sound in "no".  The right pronunciation is "mo" as in "no" and not "mau" as in "now".  This can happen all the time with some other words such as "giant"(=j) and "god"(=g), "chime"(=ch) and "character"(=k), "see"(=s) and "Sean"(=sh).


How can we know how to pronounce each sound?  Do we have to learn only by trial and error? Do we have to feel embarrased every time other people don't understand our pronunciation and in the end exclaim "Oh, you mean - - - - - -?"


Please watch the videos about phonetics and pronunciation from the website BBClearningenglish.com:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIPOGkyx-7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSYJ2jNhaMs&feature=related





Here is a video clip for consonant sounds from BBC learning English.  After the clip ends, you can click the suggested clips appearing at the end for other consonant sounds:






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh6uuwkA3o8&feature=related
























































































I'd also like to recommend many other websites which provide us with useful videos.


The first one is
http://international.ouc.bc.ca/pronunciation/


The second one is
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/anatomy.htm
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html


I'd also like you to click the following website and practice whatever you can:




http://evaeaston.com/consonants.html
http://evaeaston.com/vowels.html
http://evaeaston.com/t-d-Id-pattern.html
http://evaeaston.com/s-z-Iz-pattern.html
http://evaeaston.com/sl-pattern.html
http://evaeaston.com/stress-pattern.html


If you want to pronounce better, you must keep practicing and you can click this website:


http://dictionary.cambridge.org/


Don't forget to learn the phonetic symbols given after each word you click.


Next, I'd like you to look at more videos from Youtube as suggested here:













The following video shows how to pronounce the final "ed" sounds and introduces sentence stresses and intonation.  It is very cute indeed.

http://youtu.be/XlSeYt6PN6s