Alphabet & Pronunciation

Vowel digraphs: ea — two sounds

eat [iː] vs bread [ɛ] — same spelling, different sounds depending on word

Vowel digraphs: oo — long vs short

food [uː] vs book [ʊ] — context and the word determine the sound

Silent e rule: hop → hope

hop→hope, cut→cute, hat→hate — final silent e changes vowel to long sound

Consonant clusters: str / spr / scr

street, spring, scream, strong, scratch — all begin with 3-consonant clusters

-tion vs -sion pronunciation

nation, action = -shun; vision, television = -zhun — suffix determines sound

-shun vs -zhun

Noun stress: first syllable

TA-ble, WIN-dow, CHI-cken, MO-ther — most 2-syllable nouns stress syllable 1

Verb stress: second syllable

re-CORD (v) vs RE-cord (n); pre-SENT (v) vs PRE-sent (n) — stress changes meaning

Schwa /ə/ — most common sound

a-LONE, to-DAY, CHOC-o-late — unstressed syllables become /ə/

/ə/

Linking in fast speech

"an apple" → [ə-NAPP-ul]; "turn it off" → [tur-ni-TOFF] in connected speech

Rising intonation for questions

Are you ready? ↗ / You're coming? ↗ — voice rises at end of yes/no questions