Lecture notes by Prabbal Frank for students of Lingayas University

Sounds in English
(Course Code 292: Effective Communication)

The primary building blocks of any language are sounds. Just as we have two types of professors
in college: liberal and strict, similarly we have two types of sounds in English language: vowel
sounds and consonant sounds. Vowel sounds are like liberal professors. Liberal professors
provide the students enough freedom to behave the way they want. Vowel sounds provide
total freedom to the breath to come out of the mouth they way it would like to. But consonant
sounds are like strict professors who will put pressure to conform to predetermined rules and
standards. So in consonant sounds restrictions are applied to breath coming out.

For example make the sound of ‘a’ and now make the sound of ‘b’. You will notice that in order
to produce the sound of ‘b’ you will first have to trap the air inside with the help of your lips
and then release it, however, ‘a’ can be spoken without any such kind of restriction.

In English spellings are not a reliable guide to pronunciation. Look at the different ways ‘a’ is
spoken in the following words: father, cake, care, cap and above. The primary reason is that
English does not have enough letters to represent the sounds. There are 44 sounds in English
and just 26 letters to represent them. So people internationally use pronunciation symbols to
represent the sounds, which gives an English learner with the pronunciation of a word. These
symbols are called International Phonetic Alphabet.

To master pronunciation, we need to have a good dictionary in our personal library. While a
Hindi ‘Shabdkosh’ is referred primarily to know the meaning of a word, the basic reason of
referring a dictionary is to know the pronunciation of a word.

Consonant Sounds

There are 26 letters in English, out of which 5 (a, e, i, o and u) are vowels and 21 are
consonants. These 21 consonant letters represent 24 consonant sounds. That means English
has less consonant letters than consonant sounds.

B C D F G H J
K L M N P Q R
S T V W X Y Z

Global Issue #1: 3 letters in English do not represent any unique sound and hence they are
not found in the pronounciation spelling in the dictionary. We are left with just 18 letters to
represent 24 sounds.
C: It either represents the s sound as in cinema or the k sound as in car.

www.theskillsacademy.net 1
Lecture notes by Prabbal Frank for students of Lingayas University

Q: It mostly represents the combination of the sounds k and w.

X: It mostly represents the combination of the sounds k and s.

Global Issue #2: There are 6 consonant sounds in English for which we do not have any
specific letters. So they are generally represented by combination of letters in everyday writing.
However, they have been assigned different symbols for pronounication spelling in the
dictionary.
sh as in shit, shine etc. Dictionary symbol /ʃ/.
zh as in measure, vision etc. Dictionary symbol /ʒ /.
ch as in chair, change etc. Dictionary symbol / ʧ /.
th as in thin, thank etc. This is known as the soft voice of th. Dictionary symbol / θ /.
th as in this, that etc. This is known as the hard voice of th. Dictionary symbol / ð/.
ng as in sing, hang etc. Dictionary symbol /ŋ /.

Global Issue #3: While referring to the pronounciation spelling in the dictionary you need to
be careful about 3 symbols because of the confusion which arises between letters and spelling
letters.
y is represented in the dictionary by the symbol /j/
j is represneted in the dictionary by the symbol /ʤ/
z is represented in the dictionary by the symbol /z/

Global Issue #4: There are two varieties of K, P and T: the airy (aspirated) and the normal
variety. While we know how to speak the normal varitey, we should learn to speak the airy
variety. In order to learn it, place your palm in front of your mouth. Now have a gush of air
pass on to your palm. Do this 50 times. Now along with the air speak ‘K’. This ‘k’ is the airy ‘k’
as it has more of air and less of voice. Similarly now speak the ‘p’ and ‘t’ sounds.

Whenever a word starts with the ‘k,’ ‘p’ or ‘t’ sounds, use the airy variety. Normally
dictionaires will not show you when to use the airy variety, however, high end dictionary will
represent the airy variety like this: kh, ph, th

In many languages including Hindi, we have different letters for the normal and airy variety like
‘d’ and ‘[’. However, in English, the language developers agrue that we don’t need two letters to
represent these two varieties are they are very close (similar) sounds.

www.theskillsacademy.net 2
Lecture notes by Prabbal Frank for students of Lingayas University

Practice Session
Exercise #1: Copy pronunciation spellings of the words given below from the dictionary.
car
cinema
quiet
axis

Exercise #2: Find out 1word each where the pronunciation spellings start with the symbols c,
q and x.
______________________________________________________________________________

Exercise #3: Write down 5 words which have the sounds given below.

/ʃ/
/ʒ/
/ʧ/
/θ/
/ð/
/ŋ/
/j/
/ʤ/
/z/

www.theskillsacademy.net 3
Lecture notes by Prabbal Frank for students of Lingayas University

Vowel Sounds

English has 5 vowel letters: a, e, I, o and u which are used to represent 20 unique vowel sounds. They
cause havoc with the pronunciation of non-native English Speakers. Let us take the two vowel sounds
which are mostly pronounced incorrectly by non-native English Speakers.

The Baby Vowel

Many times all the vowel letters are just pronounced as a very very light dismissive sound. This sound is
represented by the symbol ‘ə’ in the dictionary. For example look at the words: above, onion, umbrella.
Here ‘a,’ ‘o’ and ‘u’ become just ‘ə’.

Similarly whenever a word ends with –ment or –dent or –lent the letter ‘e’ becomes ‘ə’ so you have to
pronounce these words as –mənt, -dənt, lənt. Practice this principle with the help of the following
words: moment, agreement, judgement, department, Pepsodent and fragment.

The Invisible E
Many people believe in the fallacy that you have got to see it to believe it. Ask, electrical engineers if
they have ever seen electricity? The answer would be no but then they know that electricity exists. So it
is not necessary for a thing to exist that you should be able to see it.

Many times in the spellings you won’t see an ‘E’ but you have to speak it, that is why it is called the
invisible ‘E’. For example take these words: cake, bake, sake, make, great and stage. Although all these
words just have an ‘a’ in the spellings but you have to speak an ‘e’ with it to make the pronunciation
right.

In the dictionary you will find the symbol for this sound as: /eɪ/ Words using this sound

a ay ai ey ea
sake day pain they great
lady tray jail convey break
dangerous navy paint obey create
agent pray tail graveyard steak
fake stay wait grey
ache play fail hey
stake clay train

Practice Sentences
• Can you please do it for my sake?
• Do you know how to make a pizza?
• You got to bake the biscuits at the last.
• We have a beautiful lake near our house.
• Fake it till you make it.
• What is the cost of that table?
• Can you pass me the plate?
• Better be late than never.
• Fate chooses your relations, you choose
your friends.
• Nothing great was ever achieved without
enthusiasm.

www.theskillsacademy.net 4
Lecture notes by Prabbal Frank for students of Lingayas University

www.theskillsacademy.net 5