Front vowels: /i:/ vs /I/

/i:/ and /I/ are two front vowel sounds.  

A) DESCRIPTION: 

/i:/ is a long sound. The front of the tongue is raised to the highest possible point: the lips are spread; the tongue is tense, with the rims making a firm contact with the upper molars.

This is the sound which makes English people smile: when they are taking a photo at people they usually say "CHEESE" so that they appear smiling in the picture.

/I/ is a short sound. The tongue is nearer to centre than to front, raised just above the half-close position; the lips are loosely spread; the tongue is lax, with the side rims making a light contact with the upper molars.

B) COMPARING BOTH SOUNDS

Phonologically, /i:/ and /I/ are distinguished by length, but this is not related to real time duration. Before a voiceless consonant /i:/ can be shortened, in fact as short as /I/: beat-bid. The real difference is that /i:/ is a tense vowel whereas /I/ is a lax vowel. 

C) SPELLING:

/i:/: "ee, ea, e, ie, ei, ey, i". For example: see, meat, even, brief, seize, key, machine.

Exceptions: the vowels in these words are also pronounced with /i:/: quay, people, Caesar, phoenix

/I/: "i, y, e, ie, a". For example: sit, crystal, except, sieve, courage.

There are also exceptions. The bold letters in these words are pronounced with /I/: build, busy, women, minute, Sunday, Disney.

D) IDENTIFY THE SOUNDS:
Watch this video:

E) PRACTICE: 

E.1) Tongue twister: decide when to use /i:/ or /I/. Then practice the words individually. Finally, repeat the whole tongue twister:

a) I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit. And on a slitted sheet I sit. I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit. The sheet I slit, that sheet was it.
b) If Freaky Fred Found Fifty Feet of Fruit and Fed Forty Feet to his Friend Frank how many Feet of Fruit did Freaky Fred Find?
E.2) Recognize /i:/ and /I/ in this game. Play games 4 and 5. Good luck!

F) TRANSCRIPTION PRACTICE
Do this quizz. Mind the spelling of the words provided and choose /i:/ or /I/.

Hope you enjoy it!

PS: don't forget to write a comment on this post telling us if you find these exercises helpful.

/f/ vs /v/

/f/ and /v/ are two labio-dental fricative sounds.

A) DESCRIPTION: the lower lip makes light contact with the upper teeth, so that the escaping air produces friction. For /f/, the friction is voiceless, whereas for /v/, the friction is voiced.

B) SPELLING:
/f/: "f, ff, ph, gh". For example: fork, off, physics, enough, nephew.
/v/: "v, f". For example: very, of, leave.

C) IDENTIFY THE SOUNDS:
C.1. Open this chart, click on FRICATIVE, then click on /f/. Play the video with the mouth picture. Then play the video on the right.
C.2. Watch this video:

Now answer the following questions about these two sounds:
C.2.1. What's the same in both sounds?
C.2.2. What is the difference?

D) PRACTICE:
D.1. Open this chart again, click on FRICATIVE, then click on /f/. Play the video with the mouth picture. Then play the video on the right. Listen and repeat the sound and words. Do the same with /v/.
Now watch the video again in order to practice and repeat the sounds and words.
D.2. Finally, try these tongue twisters:
-"My wife gave Mr Snipe's knife a wipe".
-"Violet bet a bat her best vest".
Hope you enjoy it!

PS: once you have done all the activities write a comment on them in this blog.
Pictures in this post:
Author: Banco de imágenes del CNICE.
License: CC: reconocimiento, no comercial, compartir igual.

Transcription tool to turn texts into phonetics

Here you have a good transcription tool to transcribe words or texts into phonetics. One of the most interesting characteristics of this tool is that it provides both a BrE or an AmE output.

/ə/ - schwa

It is the most frequent of all English vowels because historically it has replaced many unstressed vowels. It has a restricted distribution: it only appears in unaccented syllables.

a. Description: it is very short and weak. The middle of the tongue lies in a relax position and the lips are neutral (neither spread nor rounded).

b. Spelling: this sound only appears in unaccented syllables and it may be spelt with any single vowel or combined with consonants:

-"a": about, woman, chocolate
-"e": sister, the
-"i": impossible
-"o": synonym, photograph
-"u": suggest, Saturday

Vowels are distinguished by distribution: /ə/ can only appear in unaccented positions and /I, ʊ/ in both accented and unaccented, the rest of the vowels always requiring some kind of stress.

ACTIVITIES:
1. Watch this video about how to pronounce schwa and practice several times with the examples given in this webpage:



2. Schwa prediction
3. Pronunciation practice:
     3a. Open this chart, click on vowels-monophthongs, then click on central: listen and practice the schwa.
     3b.Watch this video and practice.
     3c. Listen, read and practice in this webpage.
4. Visit this ESL pronunciation web page and do the exercises provided to practice the schwa.

Test your English pronunciation

How many times do we meet a written word and we don't know how to pronounce it? Everyday, I'm afraid. That makes learning English difficult. However we have phonetics to help us. Phonetics is an essential tool to learn English. Here you have a webpage with a test on phonetics. Try and do it in order to check how much phonetics you remember from our last year course.

http://www.antimoon.com/how/test-pronunciation/test.php
After having done this text, write a commentary on how successful (or unsuccessful) you were.

Text reconstruction

Here you have two listening exercises which consist of writing the story you are listening to. Type your text in the Type box and the use the chech and help buttons to help you. Once you have finished, you can check your text and have a look at the solutions.
This one is easier than the second one:
http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/uploads/ressources/academic/text_reconstruction_exercises/17_warming.htm
This one is more difficult than the previous one because you have to write the whole text. No help is provided:
http://eolf.univ-fcomte.fr/uploads/ressources/listening/herethere/01.htm

As a final activity you can listen and then read the texts several times paying attention to the sounds we have worked on in class as well as intotation and fluency.

When you have finished, come back to the blog a write a comment on the activity.

Australia

What do you know about Australia? Is "kangaroo" the first word that comes to your mind when you think of Australia? What interesting places can you visit there? Who was Captain Cook?

Well, if you don't know the answers, don't worry. In the link below you can find a listening about Australia which includes all the answers for those questions and much more information about the country.

This is a different listening activity from those we have done in this blog before. You are given the whole text you have to listen to with a lot of gaps and, obviously, you have to complete the text.

After doing this listening activity and checking your answers, try to read aloud the whole text yourself. Listen to it as many times as you need, paying attention to how words are pronounced. Then repeat it several times (three times or more).

Here you have the link:
http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~adelegc/listening/Australia/Australia.html
Cheers

/i:/ vs /I/

Here you have a webpage to practice these two sounds, firstly in single words (minimal pairs), and then in a sentence. Listen and repeat the words and practice the sentence several times.

PS: don't forget writing a comment on this post telling us if you find these exercises helpful.

Tongue Twisters

Time for speaking practice. Watch the video and try to repeat the tongue twisters... as fast as you can... ;) This exercise will help you improve your fluency, which is very important if we don't want our listeners to fall asleep.




more about "Tongue Twisters", posted with vodpod