voiced & voiceless sounds | American English Pronunciation Blog

Archive for voiced & voiceless sounds

Lose or Loose? What’s the difference?

This morning one of my accent reduction coaching clients asked me: What’s the difference between the words lose & loose? Here is my step by step answer: Phonetically, the verb lose sounds like luwze. The vowel sound is /uw/ as in Blue. The S has a /z/ sound. Phonetically, the adjective loose sounds like luwse.

Pronouncing Voiced & Voiceless Consonant Sounds

Are you an Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese or Spanish speaker who is working to improve your American accent? If you are….it’s really important that you learn to use voiced consonant sounds! Let me explain what I mean….. A voiced sound causes your vocal chords to vibrate. A voiceless sound does not cause your vocal chords to vibrate. TRY THIS

Did you say Texas or taxes?

While working with my accent reduction coaching clients last week, I noticed that many of them don’t say the words Texas & taxes clearly & distinctly. If you aren’t an American English speaker, these two words may sound identical to you. However, each word sounds quite different to the American listener.✔ Let’s break down these

All About American English Consonants!

Professor Duncan from Towson University in Maryland has created an very thorough audio lesson on the American English consonant sounds. I’ve posted this audio lesson at the link below. Professor Duncan explains the phonemic symbols that we use to represent the consonant sounds. He also explains the difference between voiced and voiceless consonant sounds. There is a fun

Why You Need to Use the 3 Sounds of S

This morning one of my accent reduction coaching clients said to me; “Susan, the reason the American accent is so difficult for me, is because so many of the letters have more than one sound!” And you know, he’s right. The fact that our 26 letters make 44 different sounds creates plenty of problems for

Understanding Voiced & Voiceless Consonants

One of the key skills that I teach my accent reduction coaching clients from Japan & China is how to articulate voiced & voiceless consonants. Here is a brief description~ American English has 24 consonant sounds. 15 of these sounds are voiced & 9 are voiceless. Voiced sounds create a vibration in your vocal chords

Why Do I Have an Accent When I Speak American English? Part 3

This is Part 3 of my series that describes why you have an accent when you speak American English. In the past two posts I wrote about the importance of syllable stress and lengthening vowel sounds. You may want to go back and read those posts if you haven’t done that already. ☛ Today I’ll

How do you pronounce THE?

This week in my accent reduction coaching classes two people asked me how to pronounce the word “the”. Here are 3 techniques you must follow in order to pronounce THE correctly. Technique # 1. THE begins with the voiced Th consonant sound. To make the voiced Th sound you must place the tip of your

Word Final Sounds are Critical for Clear Spoken English

Over the years, I’ve taught American English pronunciation to many Chinese & Brazilian Portuguese speakers. One mispronunciation that speakers from both of these languages often make is dropping word final sounds. I’ve also found that when Brazilian & Chinese speakers do say word final consonant sounds, they say them so softly (without voicing) that American English

Words with the Voiceless TH Sound

Spoken American English has two TH sounds. One sound is voiced and one is voiceless. The voiceless TH sound is found in the middle of these common words. Something Everything Anything Nothing Birthday Faithful Wealthy Healthy Methods Many non native speakers pronounce the TH as a /t/. This creates an accent and sounds kind of