By Olga Smith
People who take our elocution lessons find that the reason why they struggle with English punctuation and have an accent is:
Not all English sounds exist in their native language and they are not sure how to produce them correctly. Their speech organs are trained for their native language from childhood. When they speak English, they don’t place their tongue, lips and jaw as native English speakers do.
One of the most common mistakes that people make is with the following short English vowels:
[ɪ] – pit – [pɪt]
[ʊ] – book – [bʊk]
[ɒ] – box – [bɒks]
These short vowels have long partner sounds:
[iː] – feet – [fiːt]
[uː] – boot – [buːt]
[ɔː] – fort – [fɔːt]
Although they are considered partners they are pronounced differently and have slightly different speech organ positions. That what makes it so difficult.
It is very important to master these short vowels if you want to have clear speech. If you fail to pronounce them correctly not only you will have a foreign accent, but in some cases, even the meaning of the word will change and what you are saying will be confusing to others. Look at the examples below where the meaning of the word changes if you fail to pronounce a short sound.
Short [ɪ] Long [iː]
hit heat
bit beat
is ease
Short [ʊ] Long [uː]
foot food
pull pool
full fool
Short [ɒ] Long [ɔː]
shot short
spot sport
tot taught
We recommend that you master all long and all short English vowels and comparison chapters from our apps and books:
Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, and Business English Speech, and take a few elocution lessons. To get the best results with these apps, download the video courses Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.
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