English Pronunciation and Accent Training Course

Learn the difference between written and spoken English, and master pronunciation through phonetics, articulation, suffixes and prefixes, pronouns, and the International Phonetic Alphabet for natural, connected speech.

Explore how English sounds differ from letters and how the International Phonetic Alphabet helps transcribe them, with examples like good, doctor, and six.

Explore English vowel sounds through a mouth opening and tongue position wall chart, identify each sound, and practice articulation with guided repetition.

Explore the 24 English consonant sounds, their places of articulation, and how active (tongue, lips) and passive (alveolar ridge, hard palate) articulators shape speech.

Explore the eight places of articulation used in English, and learn how active and passive articulators shape bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar, palatal, velar, and glottal consonants by blocking airflow.

Master the eight manners of articulation in English, from stops and fricatives to nasals and approximants, and learn how airflow and tongue movement shape each sound.

Explore phonation by tracing how the glottis and vocal cords produce voiced and voiceless sounds, and compare place and manner of articulation across bilabial, dental, alveolar, and post-alveolar consonants.

Explore how syllables, built from consonant sounds around a vowel, serve as the basic units of English pronunciation, including open and closed syllables and the use of IPA later.

Explore how to pronounce all English sounds, master the IPA and its chart, and apply the key terminology introduced earlier to deepen pronunciation skills.

Master the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to decode word sounds and improve English pronunciation, and discover how dictionaries use IPA symbols with downloadable IPA and English phonetic charts.

Explore the IPA chart and English consonant sounds by examining places and manners of articulation, glottal stops, plosive releases, and varied symbols used across languages.

Discover the basics of English vowel sounds, including monophthongs, diphthongs, and triphthongs, and learn how tongue position and articulation produce pure vowels.

Master the vowel sounds /i:/ and /ɪ/ using IPA notation, with close front unrounded tongue position and near-closed lips, and compare British and American pronunciation through practice words.

Explore the vowel sounds /u:/ and /ʊ/ by positioning the tongue at the back of the mouth and rounding the lips, with examples like you, noon, use, and true.

Explore the vowel sounds /a:/ and /ʌ/ by articulating with an open mouth and low tongue, relaxing the lips, and using ipa transcriptions and example words.

Master the vowel sounds /ɒ/ and /ɔː/ through articulation-focused IPA guidance, mouth positioning, and practice sentences to improve English pronunciation.

Explore how to articulate the vowel sounds /e/ and /æ/ with the tongue forward, appropriate mouth posture, and voicing differences, and practice IPA transcription using example sentences.

Compare the vowel sounds /ɜ:/ and the schwa /ə/ through wall sound comparison. Note tongue center placement, mouth openness, and voicing, with examples and IPA practice.

Master the standard eight English vowel sounds and the diphthongs /eɪ/, /aɪ/, and /ɔɪ/ by articulating tongue positions, gliding smoothly between vowels, and using IPA with native guidance.

Master the vowel sounds /əʊ/ and /aʊ/ by coordinating tongue at the back, open or rounded lips, and voiced articulation, then practice with example words and sentences and IPA transcription.

Learn to articulate the vowel sounds /eə/, /ʊə/, and /ɪə/ through voicing and gliding, tongue positions (front, center, back), lip rounding, and IPA transcription, with example words.

Explore the consonant sounds /p/ and /b/ in English, focusing on bilabial, plosive, voiced versus voiceless articulation, and pairing similar sounds with example words and IPA transcription.

Explore the articulation of the /t/ and /d/ consonants as voiceless aspirated and voiced plosive stops. Describe tongue position at the alveolar ridge and the release burst, with example words.

Explore the articulation of the consonants /k/, /g/, and /h/—velar stops for /k/ and /g/, a glottal fricative for /h/—and practice with examples and IPA transcription.

Explore the labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/ formed by the lower lip and upper teeth. Identify voiced versus unvoiced sounds with examples like farm, laugh, gopher, driveway, and vampire.

Master the consonant sounds /θ/ and /ð/ by learning airflow constriction with the tongue against the upper teeth, as fricatives, and by practicing IPA transcription.

Explore the articulation of the alveolar /s/ and /z/ at the alveolar ridge with a narrow air channel, focusing on the unvoiced /s/ and examples like soup and zoo.

Master the post-alveolar fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ through tongue position behind the alveolar ridge. Practice listening, IPA transcription, and examples like 'your shirt is red' to identify these sounds.

Explore the post-alveolar consonant sounds /ʈʃ/ and /dʒ/, their classification as sibilant fricatives, and practice IPA transcription using example words.

Explore the bilabial, alveolar, and retroflex nasal consonants /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/, detailing place of articulation, nasal air release, and voicing, with IPA practice and example sentences.

Practice the articulation of the English consonants /l/ and /r/, focusing on lateral and alveolar approximants. Learn tongue placement behind the alveolar ridge and curling the tongue for accurate pronunciation.

Learn to articulate the consonant sounds /w/ and the palatal approximant /j/, using labeled articulation cues and example words and sentences to reinforce correct English pronunciation.

Explore how spoken English differs from written English by examining IPA vowel and consonant sounds, and three major subjects: consonant clusters, stress, and the difference between stressed and unstressed syllables.

Explore how consonant clusters form and are articulated as a whole, including initial, final, within‑word, and across‑word clusters, and identify challenges for speakers whose native languages limit consonant sequences.

Learn to pronounce initial consonant clusters clearly using rules for keeping consonants intact, compare examples with IPA transcriptions, and improve understandability for native speakers.

Master final consonant clusters at word ends, learning two to four sounds, common simplifications, and how omitting them causes misunderstanding; practice with examples like best, last, task, jump, clock.

Explore consonant clusters that occur within and across words, including at beginnings and ends, and tackle challenges with examples like cough medicine and vacuum cleaner.

Learn how stress in English shapes pronunciation, guiding timing and clarity by emphasizing stressed words for natural, listener-friendly speech.

Examine how dictionaries indicate the prominent stress on syllables, learn to identify the main stress in words, and explore stress shift with practical examples.

Explore how suffixes attach to word roots to change meaning or grammar and affect stress. Identify suffixes that rarely shift stress and practice comparing root and suffixed forms with IPA.

Analyze how suffixes influence word stress, including stress shift and pre-suffix placement, with examples showing when the main stress remains before the suffix and various exceptions.

this lecture explains how suffixes affect word stress and pronunciation, showing vowel changes in the stressed syllable and consonant shifts, with examples like nation to national and description to descriptive.

Explore how prefixes affect word stress and pronunciation, contrasting with suffixes, including unstressed prefixes that gain emphasis, stress patterns across accents, IPA notation, and verb versus noun stress shifts.

Explore how prefixes influence word stress in English, identifying when the main stress falls on the prefix versus the base word, with examples like counter-, super-, sub-, and co-.

Learn how to stress compound nouns with examples like newspaper and earthquake, noting that main stress usually falls on the first word and adjective-plus-noun is not a compound.

Explore stress patterns in compound adjectives and abbreviations, from hyphenated or nonhyphenated forms to first-part or second-part emphasis, including two-to-four-letter abbreviations.

Explore how stress falls on the last part of longer compound nouns, with exceptions when the second part carries importance, or when the first part signals contrast; note hyphenation cues.

Master phrasal verbs by understanding verb plus preposition or adverb combinations, recognize meaning changes, study stress patterns, and practice with common examples to sound like a native speaker.

Explore two-stress and three-word phrasal verbs, noting main stress placement and possible shifts, with examples like back down, pay back, look up to, brush up on, and clamp down on.

Explore how stressed and unstressed syllables shape pronunciation, tone, and meaning, learn to recognize emphasis in words and sentences, and avoid common mis-stressing errors through guided practice.

Explore how function words carry stress and switch between weak and strong forms to shape sentence tone. Understand pronouns, articles, and possessives, and how connected speech governs end-of-sentence emphasis.

Learn to make prominent function words including determiners, pronouns, and auxiliaries in contrastive sentences to improve pronunciation and accent.

Discover how vowels in unstressed syllables of content words vary with stress, contrast with function words, and practice reducing wobble to improve fluent English speech.

Explore syllabic consonants in English, where nasal and liquid sounds can fill the nucleus of a syllable, their IPA notation, and usage after unstressed syllables in fluent speech.

Master natural, fluent English by adopting rhythm, correct word stress, and the aspects of connected speech in everyday speaking, including assimilation rules.

Explore the rhythm and stress timing of English, distinguishing content and function words, and learning how sentence stress, prominence, and length patterns influence intelligibility in spoken English.

Explore the rules of connected speech, including assimilation, elision, contractions, and twinning or germination, to understand how native speakers link sounds and adjust rhythm in English.

Explore how English pronunciation uses assimilation to connect sounds, including voicing and place changes. Learn the three directions—regressive assimilation, progressive assimilation, and qualis assimilation—with everyday speech examples.

Explore the assimilation of the /t/ sound before /m/, /b/, /p/, and /k/ in compound words to create fluent pronunciation. Learn through practical examples like flight plan and private property.

Explore assimilation of /t/ before the /j/ sound with spoken examples and sentences, including 'did you,' 'don't you,' and 'hunt you down' to illustrate real-world usage.

Learn how the /d/ assimilates before /g, /k, /n, /m, /b, or /p/ in compound words, often via a glottal stop. See examples like good morning and blood pressure.

Explore how the nasal /n/ assimilates before the /p/ and /k/ sounds in connected speech, with examples like green park, pink coats, and this bag has 10.

Explore how the /s/ sound assimilates before /j/ and /ʃ/ across word boundaries, using examples such as bless you and this shop to shop to illustrate the change.

Explore the assimilation of the /ð/ sound, or th-dropping, where the next word's sound shifts to the preceding one, often producing a nasal-like articulation in connected speech, with examples.

Master the schwa, the most important unstressed vowel in English, heard in rapid speech and used in many words, including articles a and the and prepositions to and for.

Explore English pronunciation using IPA basics and how sounds are articulated with air passing through the lungs, correcting common mispronounced verbs across nine short informative lectures.

Practice rapid pronunciation of was and were in fluent speech, focusing on unstressed grammatical words, reduced forms, and listening to native speakers to imitate and spot differences.

Learn how the conjunction and is often mispronounced and stressed, affecting sentence flow and rhythm, and how its pronunciation shifts from slow to rapid speech, as shown with examples.

Explore how modal verbs, as auxiliary verbs, are pronounced differently in rapid speech, and practice examples such as have to and can, improving fluent pronunciation.

Discover how the definite article the marks specific nouns and how its pronunciation shifts after consonant versus vowel sounds in fluent speech, with examples.

Explore been in fluent speech, its unstressed form in rapid talk, and its difference from dictionary IPA with practical examples.

Explore how the auxiliary have contracts in fluent speech, while also serving as a normal verb, with examples like would have missed the train and would have bought the dog.

Explore how cat nation bonds sounds in fluent English to create connected speech, especially consonant to vowel linking. Examine examples like my mother-in-law and orange to illustrate this phenomenon.

Explore vowel–vowel linking, catenation, and liaison by using glide sounds and lip positions to connect words in fluent speech.

Learn elision, the not voicing of sounds, especially when three consonants cluster; practice eliding the middle consonant to improve pronunciation with examples like you must be here by seven.

Explore contractions to shorten words and speak more fluently, sounding like a native speaker. Review the most common contraction forms, then practice all these contracted forms in your free time.

Master consonant elongation, twinning, and gemination by learning to reduce two identical sounds into one to improve speech fluency, with practical examples from the lecture.

Explore intrusion, or epenthesis, the addition of sounds between adjacent sounds in English pronunciation, with clear examples.

Learn lenition, the weakening of consonant sounds in British English dialect, with examples and guidance to practice by listening to native speech and rapid speech.

Review the course and update your star rating and feedback to help future learners. Access the English Holik website, social media accounts, and the Facebook group for ipa resources.