You can go to the beginning of the video to hear more information about pronouncing each letter.
After you practice, take this test:
You can go to the beginning of the video to hear more information about pronouncing each letter.
After you practice, take this test:
Is it FEB-ROO-ARY? or FEB-YOU-ARY? Both are acceptable, but it is more common to hear someone say FEB-YOU-ARY .
Here you can listen to a variety of people pronounce “February” on YouGlish.
And here’s a YouTube video about the different pronunciations…
If you “think out loud“, you speak what you are thinking. If you sing out loud, you will improve your pronunciation.
The lyrics: Continue reading
Last week there was an article about Regular Verbs and Their Spelling. The main spelling rule is that the past tense of all regular verbs ends with -ed.
However, the -ed ending is pronounced differently in different words…
worked – sounds like workt (just one syllable)
cleaned – sounds like cleand (just one syllable)
started – sounds like startid (2 syllables)
How do you know which sound to use?
Feel your throat while you say a sound.
For some sounds (‘voiced’ sounds like n, d, and m) you will feel vibration (). For other sounds (‘unvoiced’ sounds like t, k, and p) you will not feel vibration.
Now feel your throat while you pronounce a regular verb (like work, clean, start) and notice the last sound of the word (work, clean, start)
If you don’t know how to pronounce someone’s name, or you have difficulty repeating their name, here is some help.
One good place to listen to the common pronunciation of many names is YouGlish.
For example:
Try to pronounce these names by yourself, and then try them in YouGlish, above:
Elijah, Genevieve, Zachariah, Reynolds, Holmes
Finally, if you would just like to hear the pronunciation of a lot of common names, you can try these:
Smartphones can listen to you speak, and display your words. So can iPads and computers. If your phone can understand you, other people will probably understand you.
Practice your speech on iPhone or iPad
Practice on Android phone or tablet
When your phone can understand you, you can use your voice for … email, text messages, Siri questions on iPhones (“Hey Siri“), Google searches (“OK Google“), Alexa, and more.
Google Translate
On iPhones or Android phones, you can also use the Google Translate app (Android; Apple) for this.
Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg is the name of a lake in the town of Webster, Massachusetts, near Connecticut. It is also known as Webster Lake. The 45-letter name is the longest name for a place in the United States and 6th longest in the world.
Here’s a video about the lake, and – can you believe that someone wrote a song about it?
Many English learners have trouble pronouncing the TH sounds. Here’s a two-minute video lesson:
Here’s another video with more detail. You can find you own videos by going to YouTube and searching for pronounce TH (or any other sound too, such as pronounce R).
** Try this free Pronunciation App for your phone/tablet: “Pronunciation Power” for Apple