Consonant pronunciation bootcamp

The pronunciation of English consonants involves movements of the mouth, tongue, and lips. It’s sometimes easier to learn these sounds when you have a visual guide. This website uses linguistic terms and phonemic symbols that may be unfamiliar. However, once you find the sound you want to make (for example, an “f” sound is a voiceless labiodental fricative), it shows you a diagram of where you should place your lips and teeth and a video of a person making the sound.

As with the vowel and diphthong exercises, I will be using minimal pairs to practice different consonant sounds. Links to the words I’m saying are above the recordings and I’m using material from Ted Power, but with American pronunciation.

Pin/bin  (note that it should be par, not pa)

♥

Ten/den

♥

Coal/goal

♥

Fan/van

♥

Thigh/tie

♥

Thigh/die

♥

Thin/sin

♥

Then/den

♥

Then/Zen

♥

Sip/zip (note that it should read peace/peas)

♥

Thin/thing

♥

Thing/think

♥

Load/road

♥

Wet/vet

♥

Sheet/cheat

♥

Sheep/jeep (note that I’ve left out shone/John because shone is pronounced differently in American English)

♥

Chest/test

♥

Cheap/jeep

♥

Jet/yet