When a word that ends with a plosive is followed by a word that begins with aconsonant,the plosive is usually not released. That is,the tongue or lips will move tothe place of articulation of the plosive and then move immediately to the place ofarticulati...[继续阅读]

    In English,to make a noun plural or possessive,or to put a verb in the thirdperson singular form of the present tense,we add /s/ or /z/ to the word. This ending isspelt in several ways and pronounced in different ways.-s — two hours,he says,she gets-es — ...[继续阅读]

    The nature of stress is simple enough - practically everyone would agree that thefirst syllable of words like father,open,camera is stressed,that the middle syllable isstressed in potato,apartment,relation and that the final syllable is stressed in about,...[继续阅读]

    In informal spoken English,tails are sometimes used at the end of a sentence toemphasize or make clearer what we have just said. We often use them when we givean evaluation of something:It’s a really good photo ↘,that one ↗. ("that" is the tail)She’s a ju...[继续阅读]

    /h/ is regularly elided from the weak forms of function words such as (h)is,(h)er,(h)im. This is heard even in formal registers of all varieties of L1 English speech.Silent letters in words like comb,knee,talk,provide evidence of elisions that haveoccurre...[继续阅读]

    The breath in articulation may be of various degrees of strength. It may be very strong,less strong,weak,very weak,etc. For phonetic purposes,however,it is sufficient to distinguish three principal degrees:1) Primary Stress - the strongest degree of stres...[继续阅读]

    Although English words of more than one syllable have a fixed stress pattern,there are still countless polysyllabic words the stress of which may be shifted forwardor backward for various reasons,such as rhythm,emphasis,contrast,grammar,etc.Rhythmical Str...[继续阅读]

    Question tags are short questions added to the end of a statement,usually to produce a response from a hearer. We use a falling tone for question tags when we expect the hearer to acknowledge that what we have just said is correct,for example,when we are ...[继续阅读]

    Producing /j/1) Raise the soft palate to stop the air escaping throughthe nasal cavity;2) Press the sides of the tongue against the upper backteeth;3) Raise the front of the tongue from the /i:/ positiontoward the hard palate so that the friction takes pl...[继续阅读]

    The past tense ending for regular verbs can present pronunciation problems toChinese learners because even though all regular past tense endings are spelt as ed ( d,ied ) there are actually three different pronunciations:/d/ as in begged /begd/, failed /f...[继续阅读]