Overview of Vowels
Do you know the total number of different vowel sounds in English? Beginners often think the answer is “five”, because there are five vowel letters in the alphabet. Of course, anyone familiar with this blog […]
Schwa sound
The Sounds of O
I have found that 80% to 90% of students do not know that the English letter “O” has more than one sound! The letter “O” regularly uses three different sounds, but a lot of students […]
The Sounds of E
The vowel system of English can be confusing because there are only five vowel letters (A-E-I-O-U), but there are 15 different vowel sounds. The key is that each vowel letter has three or four sounds, […]
Homographs Part 3
A homograph is a word that has two different pronunciations, and the different pronunciations have different meanings. The words in Homographs Part 1 have a change in vowel sound, and Homographs Part 2 deals with […]
What is Schwa?
Schwa is the name for the most frequently used vowel sound in English. It is used for Short-u, the alternate Short-o, and reduced vowels. Short-u The Short-u sound is in many words that are spelled […]
The Sound of Schwa
The schwa sound is the most frequently occurring vowel sound in English. The good news is that it is also the easiest vowel sound to make. Tongue position To make schwa, the tongue does not […]
A tongue-twister: Fuzzy Wuzzy
Here is a good tongue-twister to try: Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, was he? There are 2 keys to pronoucing this well: 1. “Wuzzy” and “was […]
PronunciationCoach 