Phonics pronunciation letters and sounds

Learn Pronunciation with Speak Method

With this alphabet chart, understand how to say the names of the letters and read about all the sounds of each letter from the alphabet. These are the basic phonetic sounds for American English. To learn important sounds using free videos online, go to Pronunciation in English: 500 Words.

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Pronouncing the Sounds; How to Get it Right

by Michael Wood

The first step in teaching a systematic synthetic phonics program is to teach the sounds which is, by far, the easiest step for children to make. However, if the sounds are pronounced incorrectly it can make the next step, which is blending for reading, all the harder. It’s worth the time and effort to ensure children are pronouncing the sounds correctly.

Where Does Pronunciation Go Wrong?

An example should demonstrate this. Many people pronounce ’t’ as ‘tuh’ and ‘m’ as ‘muh’ but that adds a schwa sound (an unstressed vowel sound) to the end. With this incorrect pronunciation you are actually producing two sounds instead of one; ‘t’ and ‘uh’ or ‘m’ and ‘uh’.

Think of the word: ‘mat’ if you sound it out as ’muh’ + aa +tuh’ and then blend them together you get ‘muhaaatuh’ a long way off from ‘mmmaat’ and then ‘mat’.

Why the Sounds Are Often Pronounced Incorrectly

As a teacher you have the challenge of making yourself heard above 20+ children, which means lots of projection to the back of the classroom (and a particularly hoarse voice on a bad day!). Projecting a sound, especially a consonant sound, often leads to an added schwa at the end. Get the children up close to you and, if necessary, move to the back of the group for further rounds of pronunciation.

Additionally, songs and chants which include many repetitions of the sound can do nothing for the ‘purity’ of the sound. Remember, children get into the habit of breaking out the ‘sound song’ when you ask them the sound for a given letter – not very helpful for blending (too much redundant information is added). If you are going to use songs to learn the sounds, only use them as an aid in the initial learning, and then teach explicit lessons where children are expected to know the sound without the aid of a song. Many experts argue that songs and chants make the end goal of children using these sounds to blend unknown words for reading, harder. If you are using songs as an aid, have a good think about this.

No-Prep Phonics Lessons – Guiding You Through the Teaching of the Sounds

Our interactive, click-and-go Phonics Lessons guide teachers through: the introduction of the sounds and their pronunciation, alongside practice drills and speed reading activities. See a whistle-stop tour of a sounds lesson:

Learn more about our no-prep Phonics Lessons.

Some Sounds Might Not Be as Expected

In one of our recent free webinars a teacher asked: “In level 3 activities, our kindergarten team has discovered that ‘w’ sounds like ‘oo’ and ‘y’ sounds like ‘ee’. Is this a bug and were you aware of it?”

A great observation and question. To answer her question, no, it isn’t a mistake but we need to listen to the actual sounds more carefully. Many teachers pronounce these sounds as ‘wuh’ and ‘yuh’ but this adds the schwa to what is meant to be a single sound. By adding this, it makes blending difficult. Think of the word: ‘way’ (which has three letters but two sounds) if you sound it out: ‘wuh’ + ‘ay’ and then blend it together you get ‘wuhay'(which is actually three sounds). We have kept the ‘y’ and the ‘w’ in its purest form, to make blending as easy as possible.

Listen to the correct pronunciation of these sounds: look at level 3 of Part 1 on our Pronounce the Sounds tool.

Ideas to Ensure You are Teaching the Correct Pronunciation

Phoneme Phones

• Before you explicitly teach the children their sounds, ensure you are one step ahead in your accurate pronunciation.
• Use our no-prep Phonics Lessons to ensure you are pronouncing the sounds correctly.
• If children are struggling with the pronunciation, a handheld mirror for each child to check on mouth and tongue placement is helpful.
• Phoneme phones, as shown on the right, help a child to clearly hear the sound they are producing and to self-correct, once again helpful for those who are struggling.
• Exaggerate tongue and mouth movements if necessary.
• It can also be useful for children to feel their own throat while making the sounds and get the “feel” of the sound.

You will soon find that by simply being cognisant of the important link between correctly pronouncing the sounds and easy blending, you will quickly start to self-correct and produce beautifully clear sounds! Every time you say a sound, ask yourself the question: “How pure was that sound?”

Author: Michael Wood

Sounds and letters of the Russian language - scheme, table, transcription

Contents:
• What is sound?
• What sounds are there?
• How are sounds pronounced?
• Transcription of the word
• Color scheme

Sounds belong to the phonetics section. The study of sounds is included in any school curriculum in the Russian language. Acquaintance with sounds and their main characteristics occurs in the lower grades. A more detailed study of sounds with complex examples and nuances takes place in middle and high school. This page provides only basic knowledge of the sounds of the Russian language in a compressed form. If you need to study the device of the speech apparatus, the tonality of sounds, articulation, acoustic components and other aspects that are beyond the scope of the modern school curriculum, refer to specialized textbooks and textbooks on phonetics.

What is sound?

Sound, like words and sentences, is the basic unit of language. However, the sound does not express any meaning, but reflects the sound of the word. Thanks to this, we distinguish words from each other. Words differ in the number of sounds (port - sport, crow - funnel), set of sounds (lemon - estuary, cat - mouse), sequence of sounds (nose - dream, bush - knock) up to a complete mismatch of sounds (boat - boat, forest - park ).

What sounds are there?

In Russian, sounds are divided into vowels and consonants. There are 33 letters and 42 sounds in Russian: 6 vowels, 36 consonants, 2 letters (ь, ъ) do not indicate a sound. The discrepancy in the number of letters and sounds (not counting b and b) is due to the fact that there are 6 sounds for 10 vowels, 36 sounds for 21 consonants (if we take into account all combinations of consonant sounds deaf / voiced, soft / hard). On the letter, the sound is indicated in square brackets.
There are no sounds: [e], [e], [yu], [i], [b], [b], [g '], [w '], [c '], [th], [h ], [sch].

How are sounds pronounced?

We pronounce sounds while exhaling (only in the case of the interjection "a-a-a", expressing fear, the sound is pronounced while inhaling. ). The division of sounds into vowels and consonants is related to how a person pronounces them. Vowel sounds are pronounced by the voice due to the exhaled air passing through the tense vocal cords and freely exiting through the mouth. Consonant sounds consist of noise or a combination of voice and noise due to the fact that the exhaled air meets an obstacle in its path in the form of a bow or teeth. Vowel sounds are pronounced loudly, consonant sounds are muffled. A person is able to sing vowel sounds with his voice (exhaled air), raising or lowering the timbre. Consonant sounds cannot be sung, they are pronounced equally muffled. Hard and soft signs do not represent sounds. They cannot be pronounced as an independent sound. When pronouncing a word, they affect the consonant in front of them, make it soft or hard.

Transcription of a word

Transcription of a word is a recording of sounds in a word, that is, in fact, a record of how the word is pronounced correctly. Sounds are enclosed in square brackets. Compare: a is a letter, [a] is a sound. The softness of consonants is indicated by an apostrophe: p - letter, [p] - hard sound, [p '] - soft sound. Voiced and voiceless consonants are not marked in writing. The transcription of the word is written in square brackets. Examples: door → [dv'er '], thorn → [kal'uch'ka]. Sometimes stress is indicated in transcription - an apostrophe before a vowel stressed sound.

There is no clear correspondence between letters and sounds. In the Russian language, there are many cases of substitution of vowel sounds depending on the place of stress of a word, substitution of consonants or dropping out of consonant sounds in certain combinations. When compiling a transcription of a word, the rules of phonetics are taken into account.

Color scheme

In phonetic parsing, words are sometimes drawn with color schemes: letters are painted with different colors depending on what sound they mean. Colors reflect the phonetic characteristics of sounds and help you visualize how a word is pronounced and what sounds it consists of.

All vowels (stressed and unstressed) are marked with a red background. Iotated vowels are marked green-red: green means a soft consonant sound [y ‘], red means the vowel following it. Consonants with solid sounds are colored blue. Consonants with soft sounds are colored green. Soft and hard signs are painted in gray or not painted at all.

- vowel, - vowel iot - hard consonant, - soft consonant, - soft or hard consonant, - does not mean a sound.

The blue-green color is not used in the schemes for phonetic analysis, since a consonant cannot be both soft and hard at the same time. The blue-green color in the table above is only used to show that the sound can be either soft or hard.

Words with the letter ё must be written through ё. Phonetic parsing of the words "everything" and "everything" will be different!

Phonetics of the Russian language for foreigners | Russian alphabet pronunciation Letters Sounds

Russian alphabet for foreigners: often not only foreigners who begin to learn Russian, but also advanced level foreigners cannot correctly pronounce some Russian sounds. We will talk about which letters of the Russian alphabet cause difficulties for foreigners , we will give recommendations for teachers on how to teach the phonetics of the Russian language, what phonetic exercises for foreigners need to be performed and what difficulties may arise in their implementation, we will separately talk about how to put the pronunciation of Russian sounds , which cause the greatest difficulties for foreigners .

Russian as a foreign language

For beginners to learn the Russian language, foreigners the difficulty in learning the Russian alphabet and Russian phonetics lies in the fact that almost all letters of the Russian alphabet can represent several different sounds, for example: the letter E can represent the sounds [E], [YE], [ And], and sometimes even the letter E can denote the sound [Y] (after the consonants Zh, Sh, C without stress: price, wife).

Setting the pronunciation of is another difficulty for teachers of Russian as a foreign language when teaching Russian to both beginners and foreigners continuing to study Russian. Here are some suggestions, how to put the pronunciation of Russian sounds in the lessons of Russian as a foreign language.

Rules for staging Russian sounds. Teaching Russian phonetics

Russian phonetics for foreigners: first you need to ensure that the foreigner distinguishes sounds by ear. This is important because many Russian sounds sound the same to foreigners. For example, if your student says “grandfather” instead of “girl”, and when you correct him, he answers that he said so, then this means that your student does not distinguish sounds [D] and [V] by ear, they are for it sound the same.

In order for foreigners to learn to distinguish sounds by ear, we recommend doing the following exercises :

Exercise "Playing with cards" :

1. Take two sheets of paper, write on them the sounds you will practice. For example, on one sheet we write D, and on the other - V. Let's give these cards to a foreigner. The teacher pronounces the sounds [D] and [V] in random order, and the foreigner must raise the corresponding card. Of course, the teacher must tell the foreigner if he makes a mistake.

2. Then the teacher pronounces syllables, for example: wa - yes, du - wu, ava - hell, etc., and the foreigner must raise the “D” card or the “B” card.

Phonetic dictation exercise :

The teacher dictates sounds, syllables, words to the student, and the foreigner writes down what he hears.

! Please note that in the exercise “Playing with Cards” and “Phonetic Dictation”, when practicing consonants, you do not need to dictate words that end in voiced paired consonants (B, C, D, D, F, Z), because. when pronouncing at the end of a word, voiced paired consonants are stunned. For example, if you dictate to a foreigner “bow”, “meadow”, then the foreigner will write down “bow”, “bow”, because “meadow” is pronounced like “lu[K]”, while your foreign student will not make a mistake, because this is a phonetic, not a spelling dictation.

When a foreigner began to distinguish Russian sounds by ear, the teacher can already change places with the foreigner, i.e. the teacher shows the card, and the foreigner says what is written. At this stage, another problem arises: a foreigner hears and understands how a Russian sound should sound, but cannot pronounce it correctly. The greatest difficulties for foreigners arise when pronouncing the following sounds: [S], [Y], [R], [F], [C], [W], [Sh] . Below we will consider the rules for setting these sounds and give recommendations on how to explain Russian phonetics to foreigners, how to conduct phonetic exercises for foreigners.

Russian alphabet - Letters I, Y

The pronunciation of the Russian vowel sound [Ы] causes difficulties for almost all foreigners. For example, foreigners pronounce "mi" instead of "we" and "beat" instead of "be".

The pronunciation of the vowel sound [I] causes much less difficulty for foreigners. The Russian sound [I] is similar to the English sound [i:]. To pronounce the sound [I] you need to point the tongue forward and touch the tip of the tongue to the lower teeth. When pronouncing [I], your students need to smile a little :).

Let's return to the formulation of the problematic Russian sound [Ы] . When pronouncing it, the whole tongue must be pushed back and strain the back of the tongue . Now the tip of the tongue no longer touches the lower teeth, but is pushed back. When we pronounce [ы], we no longer smile (of course, such a complex sound!)

In order to help foreigners strain the back of the tongue when pronouncing the sound [ы], there is the following trick: we will use helper sounds [К] and [G]. The pronunciation of the sounds themselves [K] and [G] usually does not cause difficulty for foreigners, but when they are pronounced, the back of the tongue automatically tenses, and this is what we use in our phonetic exercise for foreigners:
yk - yg - yk - yg - yk - yg - yk - yg
ky - gy - ky - gy - ky - gy - ky - gy - s - s - s - s - s - s - s
ky - km - we - washed
gy - hmy - we - washed
ky - kvy - you - howl
gy - gvy - you - howl
ky - kby - would - was
gy - gby - would - was
soap, was, exit, exhibition, was, son, cheese, letters, smart

Russian alphabet - Letter Y

You should pay attention to foreigners beginning to study the phonetics of the Russian language to the letter of the Russian alphabet Y. The sound [Y] is found in Russian speech much more often than the letter Y , because the vowels E, E, Yu, I are at the beginning of the word, vowels and after the letters b and b denote two sounds: [YE], [YO], [YU], [YA], for example: [YO] lka, with [YE] hat, kal [YA] n.

Difficulty in pronouncing the sound [Y] (often this sound in transcription is denoted as [j]) usually occurs in foreigners if the letter Y is at the end of the word, for example: foreigners pronounce "sanatorium" instead of "sanatorium" or "my" instead "my". Very often, foreigners do not distinguish by ear the sounds [Y] and [I], then it is advisable to do the exercise “Playing with cards” with foreigners.

How to explain to a foreigner the difference between the sounds [Y], [I] and how to teach a foreigner to pronounce the sound [Y]?

It is necessary to explain to a foreigner that the sound [Y] is pronounced VERY briefly. The sound [And] can be sung: and-and-and-and-and-and-and-and-and-and ..., and the sound [Y] must be pronounced very briefly , as if someone pricked with a pin: OH! The sound [Y] is pronounced with much more tension than the sound [I], when the sound [Y] is pronounced, the middle part of the tongue rises more, so a narrower gap is created between the palate and the tongue and the air stream breaks out with more pressure, more powerfully.

Pay the attention of foreigners to the spelling of the letter of the Russian alphabet Y :

Often foreigners confuse not only the sounds [Y] and [I], but also the letters Y, I. Foreigners can write the letter Y as the letter I (without a check mark above the letter Y), they do this by analogy with writing the letters Yo and E, because. it is not necessary to put a dot over the letter Y in writing.

The teacher should draw the foreigner's attention to the fact that when writing the letter Y, you should always put a tick over the letter, because the absence of a check mark above the letter Y is a spelling and grammatical error. Compare: "my favorite cowboy" and "my favorite cowboys."

Russian alphabet - Letter Р

When pronouncing the Russian consonant sound [R], the tense tip of the tongue vibrates near the alveoli (these are tubercles above the upper teeth) under the action of an air jet.

So, when pronouncing the sound [Р], the tip of the tongue is slightly bent upwards, touches the tubercles above the teeth and is tense. But it is quite difficult for a foreigner to make the tip of the tongue vibrate. To help a foreigner, we turn to the helper sounds [T] and [D], during the pronunciation of which the tongue automatically takes the desired position at the alveoli.

Let's start our phonetic exercises.
Let's start the motorcycle!
dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr – dr…
Whose motorcycle started up?

Let's do some more exercises (pronunciation of the sound [P]):
dra - dra - dra - dra - dra - dra - dra - fight
dro - dro - dro - dro - dro - dro - dro - fraction dru - dru - dru - dru - dru - friend
tra - tra - tra - tra - tra - tra - tra - trauma
tro - tro - tro - tro - tro - tro - tro - rope
tru - tru - tru - tru - tru - tru - tru - coward

To practice the pronunciation of the soft sound [P'], in phonetic exercises, after the letter P, you need to use vowels that soften the previous consonant (E, Yo, I, Yu, Ya).

Russian alphabet - Letter Zh

Another letter of the Russian alphabet, the letter Zh, is unusual for foreigners both in its spelling (some foreigners call it a butterfly) and in its pronunciation.

When pronouncing the sound [Ж], the tip of the tongue is raised to the alveoli (to the tubercles behind the upper teeth) and the tongue is pulled back.

In order to produce the zhu zhzh sound [Ж], we again turn to helper sounds: the consonant [Г] and the vowels [О], [У]. The sound [G] will help to pull the tongue back, and the sounds [O] and [U] will help to stretch forward and round the lips.

Phonetic exercises for foreigners:
gzhu - gzhu - gzhu - zhu - magazine, beetle, buzz, tell
gzho - gzho - gzho - zho - yellow, alien, knife, circle [Ж], but the difference lies in the fact that the sound [Ш] is pronounced without the participation of the vocal cords (no voice, only noise). Below we will talk separately about the letters of the Russian alphabet Sh and Shch. How to explain the Russian sound [Ts] to foreigners?

The Russian sound [Ts] is a single and indivisible sound, although it is similar to the combination of sounds [T + S], which is why some foreigners pronounce two sounds [TS] instead of the letter Ts. In this case, the foreigner must be explained that the sound [T] must be pronounced as short as possible !

It is better to work out the pronunciation of the sound [Ts] in words where the letter T is after the letters T or D, for example: fathers, to the father, with the father, thirteen, thirty, twenty, twelve, well done ...

Russian alphabet - Letters Ш and SC

Foreigners often confuse the sounds [Ш] and [Ш] and do not even distinguish these sounds by ear. In this case You already know what to do! Of course, do the exercise "Game with cards. "

Compare how the tongue and lips are positioned when pronouncing the sound [Ш] and the sound [Ш]:

When pronouncing the sound [Щ], the entire tongue moves forward, the middle part of the tongue is raised to the palate, the tongue is tense. When pronouncing the sound [Ш], the lips are less extended forward than when pronouncing the sound [Ш]. When pronouncing the sound [Ш], the corners of the lips are slightly stretched, and when pronouncing [Ш], we do not smile.

! The sound [Щ] is pronounced LONGER than the sound [Ш].

The sound [Щ] causes much more difficulties for foreigners. It is necessary to ensure that foreigners pronounce the sound [Щ] softly. Therefore, in the phonetic exercise, we use the vowel sound [I]:

Seek - look - shchi - shield
Seek - seek - shche - cheek
Seek - seek - shche - brush
Seek - seek - shch - feel

How to perform phonetic exercises correctly when teaching phonetics of the Russian language to foreigners

When you do any phonetic exercise , you must adhere to the following scheme:

1) When teaching the phonetics of the Russian language, the teacher first reads the letters, syllables, words, and the foreigner listens to the teacher and follows the text.
2) Then the teacher reads and the foreigner repeats.
3) And only now the foreigner reads independently.

If you need to explain to a foreigner the position of the tongue when pronouncing a sound, you can show it with your hands. For example, the right hand is rounded, fingers pointing to the floor. Now your right hand is the palate, alveoli and teeth. And from the left hand we will make a tongue. Now you can show foreigners the position of the tongue in the mouth.

Thanks to this, we will be able to do without an intermediary language when explaining almost , which, of course, is a big plus.