English Intonation – 5 Learning Tips
English Intonation - 5 Tips Last week, I released a new course book - The Sound of English Intonation, designed to help learners improve both their stress and use [...]
RP (Received Pronunciation) vs SSB (Standard Southern British) vs GB (General British)
RP (Received Pronunciation) vs SSB (Standard Southern British) vs GB (General British) As pronunciation teachers, we are often asked about the accent model we use in class. Unfortunately, the accent [...]
Words of 2023
2023 - Words of the Year For the first time since COVID hit in 2020, this year's words of the year aren’t about the pandemic. Instead they are mainly concerned [...]
Phonemics or Phonetics?
Phonemic vs Phonetic Transcription A question that comes up a lot in pronunciation teaching is about the difference between two ways of transcribing sound: phonemic and phonetic: Quiz (5 [...]
Very Tenable Spoonerisms
Very Tenables and the surreal world of Spoonerisms. I should start this piece by stating that spoonerisms have nothing whatsoever to do with spoons. So nir. Except [...]
The Phonetics Police
The Phonetics Police In the world of written English, everybody knows about the grammar police. They pick at a piece of writing, not because of its language (the [...]
Matthew Perry’s Sardonic Tone Unit
Matthew Perry’s Sardonic Tone Unit Earlier this week I noticed a spike in interest in an article I wrote years ago about Upspeak - rising intonation on a statement. [...]
The UnhappY Vowel Sounds
ThE UnhappY Vowel Sounds The pronunciation of -Y endings is strange for 2 reasons: The mouth position has changed from [ɪ] in RP to [i] in GB. Most dictionaries [...]
Should we teach ‘Hard Attack’?
Should we teach 'Hard Attack'? The terminology around English phonetics can seem frustratingly vague or inprecise, particularly for those who want to use it purely as a learning tool rather [...]
