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A few difficulties with pronunciation - English lesson
lt may look paradoxical to do a lesson about pronunciation remotely, without the least
contact with the Learners... It must also look strange to do this lesson almost totally
without the 'help' of the 'phonetic alphabet'...
Besides I know and really love using this alphabet! 
Yet, my long experience with students has continually shown that most of them don't
know this alphabet, that they are disturbed by it and that it's much better to do without
it in class and get by with what we have to hand! Therefore, let's do it!
INITIAL LETTERS:
1) a) Apart from the dreaded British 'th', the main obstacle in British pronunciation,
one of the other difficulties is the less famous initial -H.
When a word starts with a -H, it is very important to 'aspirate' (in fact it means to
"blow") the first syllable to make sure not to create confusion in meanings:
- To hear/ an ear - the Heat/ eat - Hi!/ I - His/ is | - Hill/ ill - Hair/ air - Hate/ ate - Hall/ all |
Many other words start with an aspirated -H . It's very important to train to reproduce
the pronunciation of this fundamental letter.
- To have, happy, to harm, hell, heaven, hospital, hilarious, Hillary, hundred,
hostage, hurricane, to hurry...
b) Several very usual words start with an -H which mustn't be pronounced:
(the same will be done with the words which are formed from these words.)
an heir, honour, honest, hour.
2) Words starting with a -K : these words are difficult ones because the letter -K must be
pronounced ot not.
The letter -K will be pronounced for words like:
- kid, kitten, key, king, knock, kettle, kiwi, and at the beginning of a Christian name:
Kevin, Kareen, Katleen, Kurt...
Yet, there are also unpronounced -Ks, that we do not hear:
- to (k)now, (k)nee, (k)nife, (k)not, (k)nob, (k)nock, (k)nuckle, (k)nit, (k)nowledge,(k)night.
LETTERS PLACED AT THE END OF WORDS:
3) Words ending with an -S:
In that case, the final letter -S must be clearly pronounced and heard. There may be several cases :
a) When a plural word is used: foreign languages [iz], celebrities [z], cars [z], students [s]...
b) When a verb is in the simple present, 3rd person singular:
- She celebrates [s], he calls [z], it rings [z], he has [z], it consists [s] in, it depends [z] on...
c) Some Christian names: Charles [z]
4) Words ending with -ISM: these words are most of the time quite difficult to pronounce:
- 'alcoholism [izm], ca'tholicism [sizm], 'protestantism [tizm], 'capitalism [talizm], antisemitism
['anti'semitizm], scepticism ['skepticizm].
[All these words refer to general and abstract notions and are not preceded by the article 'the'.]
5) Verbs conjugated (in the preterite and past participle) ending by -ED.
When a regular verb is put in the simple past (preterite), or when it is in the past participle, there may
be three different pronunciations of the final sound:
- pronunciation in '-id': she wanted, it ended
- pronunciation in 't': we watched, I liked
- pronunciation in 'd': I played, she allowed
Enough mistakes are made on this point to make it 'deserve' a lesson for itself.
6) The sound 'th': the despair of so many students (and their teachers...) is THE difficulty
observed by everyone... Whether the Learner is making an effort or not, the result is often
very disappointing at first. 
Working and working again is the only way to improve the
method consisting in placing your tongue between your teeth and blowing at the same time.
Then, you must know there are two sorts of -th... unvoiced ones, (blown ones) and voiced
ones, (prononced with our vocal chords...)
To take you further: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCkONOv2JJM.
The sound -th must be very different from the -s:
- sin [sin] // thin [θin]
- sorrow [soro] // thorough [ˈθʌrə]
- sought [so:t] // thought [θo:t]
Many words contain the sound θ: thousands, sympathy, thank you, three...
Be careful, especially to read dates or use ordinal numbers:
- twentieth century, the fourth of July, the twenty-fifth...
7) Sounds in -i: the difficulty with this sound is the fact there are short sounds: bit [i] and
long sounds: to beat [i:]
- to peel [i:]// pill [i] - seat [i:]// sit [i] - eat [i:] // it [i] - feel [i:]// fill [i] - feet [i:]// to fit [i] | - sheep [i:]// a ship [i] - bean [i:]// a bin [i] - heat [i:] // to hit [i] - leave [i:]// live [i] - sleep [i:]// slip [i] |
8) The unpronounced consonants:
There are, alas, many unpronounced letters in English... They look like as many 'traps' for
Learners... We can only know how to pronounce them after meeting them and hearing them
again and again...
Let's only consider they are little victories and proofs of a careful work !
- [p]sychology (and the words stemming from it), a plum[b]er, i[r]on, cas[t]le, forei[g]n, su[b]tle,
thum[b], mus[c]le, We[d]nesday.
You can't know everything about English pronunciation in only one lesson, even if it is a little
too long! 
I hope this introduction will make you want to know more and work and train with the help of
the many videos that you can find very easily everywhere. Consider it like a game and work!
But first, don't forget to confront the test, just to cheer yourselves up! 
🎬 Help: how to see videos
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