IPA

short vowel

long vowel

when native speakers talk, they don’t pause between words.

Linking

Linking two consonants

• when one word ends with a consonant sound and the next word starts with the same consonant, we link the sounds. But don’t link /tf/ and /dg/

• linking similar consonants（voiced and unvoiced pair）

  don’t change the mouse position

Linking consonants to vowels

link like consanant-vowel patten

pretend the consonants are the start of the second word

Linking two vowels

add /w/ or /j/ between the two vowel, choose the easiest

Stress

words

Syllable

a syllable has one vowel sound (and only one vowel sound) and one or more consonants sounds.

stressed

If a word has two syllables or more, one syllable is always stressed: it has a strong, clear pronunciation.

• the stressed syllable should be louder
• the stressed syllable should be a little higher
• the stressed syllable should be a little longer in time

unstressed

quieter, lower and shorter

the vowel sound in the unstressed syllable are reduced ti schwa sounds or short /I/ sounds.

Sentences

unstressed

auxiliary words（助动词）, articles（冠词） and prepositions（介词）

grammar words

stressed

nouns, verbs, adjectives（形容词）and adverbs（副词）

context words

Weak Form

vowels of some grammar words became schwa

the last word of a sentence can’t be weak

always connected with words before and after it

Intonation

pattens

• Rising
• Falling
• Rising-falling
• Falling-rising
• Flat
• High
• Low

rules

1. Rule1

   • Falling tone= end of sentence

   • Rising tone= sentence not finished

2. Rule2

   • Falling tone = ’new’ information
   • Rising tone = ‘old’ infomation

3. Rule3(Questions)

   • Falling tone= you don’t know the answer
   • Rising tone = you think you know the answer

4. Rule4

   • Falling tone = make a comment
   • Rising tone = criticizing someone

5. Rule5

   • Falling tone= make a suggestion
   • Rising tone = make a indirect suggestion

Accent

American

• ‘r’ is pronounced
• when you have ’t’ sound between two vowel sounds, the ’t’ sound changes to a ’d’ sound.

British

• words written with a vowel + ‘r’, the ‘r’ is not normally pronounced.
• add ‘j’ when ‘u’ comes after certain consonants（’t’,‘d’,’n’）

Contraction

• will ’ll

• am ’m

• are ’re

  before vowel /shewa

• is ’s has ’s

  most sound ’s /z/

  /t/ /p/ /k/ /f/ /theta/ ’s /s/

• would ’d had ’d

  vowel+’d /d/

  name vowel or consonant+’d /schwa d/

• have ’ve

  vowel+’ve /v/

  consonant+’ve /schwa v/

• not n’t /nt/

• unwritten

  • did-> ‘d

  • several continuous contraction

    they’ll’ve

Elision

vowel

some vowels between consonants are not pronounced.

consonant

in some cases, consonant sounds especially /t/ or /d/ are changed or not pronounced.

• if a word ends in a consonant plus ’t’ or ’d’, and the next word start with a consonant, then the ’t’ or ’d ’ either disappears or becomes glottal(put your tongue to the position but never release it)
• /h/ at the start of a sentence

sentence

remove ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’ or auxiliary verbs from the start of a sentence or question

Silence Letters

• k in kn
• p in ps
• h in honor
• b in mb
• n in mn

Plural

• voiced /z/
• unvoiced /s/
• special case（[s z xu ju qu dj]） /Iz/

Passive voice

• voiced consonant, vowel, diphthong /d/
• unvoiced /t/
• /t/ or /d/ /Id/