Every week I receive several questions about the importance of voiced and voiceless sounds in American English pronunciation. There are many reasons why it is important to pronounce these sounds correctly.
One of these reasons is that vowel sounds that come before voiced consonants have a long, stretched out sound.
To illustrate this let’s look at the words bed & bet.
When American English speakers say the word bed they lengthen the sound of the /ɛ/ because the /d/ is a voiced sound. When they say the word bet the sound of the /ɛ/ is short in length because the /t/ is a voiceless sound.
So you would say; “I bɛt he didn’t make his bɛɛd this morning!”
Here is another example with the words prize and price.
When American English speakers say the word prize they lengthen the vowel because the /z/ is a voiced sound. When they say the word price the vowel is short in length because the /s/ is a voiceless sound.
This is just one reason why you need to understand how voiced and voiceless sounds effect your American English pronunciation.
Tags: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Pronunciation, learn american accent, voiced consonant sounds
