PHONETICS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The study of phonetics in a language is considered for advanced students. However, in English it is especially important from early because of the many problems some learners have when pronouncing it. This is especially so when our mother tongue is quite different to English.

Remember that in the English alphabet we have 26 letters but the possibilities of pronunciation are much higher (actually 44!!)

Some symbols may look strange at first but with a bit of practice it is easy as pie. Most times we use the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

The goal for learning this table is to be able to know how to pronounce an English word for the first time without the help of a native speaker or an audio dictionary.

The sounds are divided into three main groups: 1) VOWELS (with short and long vowels)2) DIPHTHONGS3) CONSONANTS (with voiced and unvoiced consonants)