Let’s aim high with the pronunciation of our consonant sounds. Sky is the limit!
Finally we will practise the rest of the consonant sounds: f, v, w, l, j, h, n, m, ŋ, r. As a teacher you can either use the recording below or make your own desicion how to use the lists. It would be better if the students knew the meanings of the words before pronouncing.
Most of these sounds are relatively widely used in many languages but I have added some comments after some lists to guide the pronunciation. The tongue twister below is pretty useless but still …
Tongue-twister: How high can a horsefly fly, if a horsefly can fly high!
Practice the sounds by repeating the words.
/f/ four, friend, family, front, fine, fellow, first, fat, before, difficult, office, half, safe, after, afraid, awful, wife, selfie, different Time 0:09-0:57
/v/ voice, van, clever, vast, value, very, five, every, seven, love, save, live, travel, over, visit, river, fever, violent, violin (Place the lower lip against the upper teeth to pronounce /v/) Time 0:58-2:00
/w/ win, want, warm, wet, walk, wait, wish, woman, word, week, well, what, why, when, where, quite, twenty, away, watch, way, twice, we, one (Start with rounded lips like in ‘one’ ) Time 2:01-3:03
The difference between ‘light’ and ‘dark’ L-sound might need to be explained before you practise pronouncing the words.
/ l / land, learn, late, lost, like, love, listen, live, lock, low, allow, yellow, eleven, help, early, long Time 3:04-3:44 This is ‘light’ L-sound at the beginning of words. The other version is the ‘dark’ L-sound pronounced deep in your throat mostly at the end of words. all, little, meal, real, tell, sell, shall, school, people, possible, full, fall, feel, – little Time 3:45-4:21 So, there are 2 versions of L-sounds depending on the position of the L-sound in the word but also heavily on the regional accents. Many American accents use only the dark-L.
/ j / year, yard, yes, young, you, your, yesterday, Europe, amuse, new, suit, music Time 4:25-4:54
/h/ hat, house, how, home, heavy, high, hope, horse, happy, however, hand, head, here, heart, hit, history, hear, husband, hundred, half, anyhow, behind Time 4:55-5:44 (new sound for Spaniards and often left out in Cockney, in reality it is just air coming out of your mouth)
/n/ no, number, name, noisy, never, nice, north, now, notice, nine, nineteen, nose, run, sun, can, green, begin, down, join, learn, know, knee, knock ( ‘know’ is pronounced just like ‘no’ , so in /kn/ /k/ is left out, ) Time 5:45-6:42
/m/ must, money, man, make, more, many, mouth, my, him, home, some, swim, time, woman, remember, summer, farm Time 6:43-7:23
/ŋ / sing, ring, finger, song, spring, thing, wrong, young, hang, drink, bring, hungry, angry, language, during, long, singer, among Time 7:24-8:04
/ r / red, rich, rose, ring, rain, radio, room, run, raw, read, rat, river, recommend, religion, repeat, restaurant, road, railway, star, car, far (the trembling element in / r/ is rather weak, except in Scottish English) Time 8:05-8:59