Sounds Archives - Pronunciation Studio: Recent Episodes
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So what is the difference between SHIIP and SHeeP?
Last week I asked Pronunciation Studio’s Instagram followers whether they consider SHIP or SHEEP to be longer, or whether they are roughly the same length. Here are the results:The answer I was hoping for was 3) Similar Length.
In pronunciation teaching I normally encourage learners to ignore the length of vowel sounds and to focus instead on mouth position. Most importantly of all – the position of the tongue.One of my favourite moments in class is when we say SHIIIIIP with a really long sound and realise that it hasn’t miraculously grown legs, walked onto land and started bleating. It’s still a boat no matter how long you make the vowel sound. This is proof that vowel length matters less than position.
The same is true if you invert this – make the sound in SHEEP really short and the woolly mammal doesn’t suddenly take to the high seas.
No.So tongue position is the main feature that distinguishes the sounds. But were 83% of our followers wrong about the length? Is SHEEP not only a different position but also a longer sound?
Well, there’s only one way to find out. Here’s me saying them into a microphone:
https://media.pronunciationstudio.com/2023/05/ship-sheep.mp3As you can see, the lengths are 0.415 seconds for SHIP and 0.416 seconds for SHEEP. A close call indeed.
But this is a small sample size, and I may deliberately lengthen SHIP and shorten SHEEP just to prove my point, I’m capable of worse. So let’s see what the dictionaries do, here’s Oxford Learner Dictionary (OED):
https://media.pronunciationstudio.com/2023/05/ship-sheep-oed.mp3So the OED has SHEEP slightly longer (we’re talking 16% here).
How about Cambridge dictionary:
https://media.pronunciationstudio.com/2023/05/ship-sheep-cambridge.mp3so again we’re seeing a slightly longer (13% to be precise) pronunciation of SHEEP.
So it’s fair to say that SHEEP is longer than SHIP, and so I will grudgingly agree with the 1456 people who voted for it. However, I agree more with the 206 people who voted for Similar Length!
Enough splitting hairs for today (or should that be wool)?
B(AAAAA)Y
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/ʌ/ - the UH Vowel. /ʌ/ is a short vowel sound pronounced with the jaw mid to open, the tongue central or slightly back, and the lips relaxed: As you can see from the examples, /ʌ/ is normally spelt with 'u', 'o' or a combination of these. The symbol /ʌ/ does not appear [...]
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A Pronunciation Guide to /a/. In standard British (GB) English /a/ is made with the tongue to the front of the mouth, and the jaw open, have a go: As you can see from the examples, it’s spelt with the letter ‘a’ with a consonant sound after it, though there are a handful [...]
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AHH - the Dentist Sound Mouth Position /ɑː/ is a vowel sound made with the jaw open, the lips relaxed, and the tongue slightly back. It is such an open sound that your dentist will ask you to make it in order to see inside your mouth. Altogether then, open wide /ɑː/ Spellings of [...]
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SH - the Whisper Sound How & When to Pronounce /ʃ/ /ʃ/ is a voiceless fricative sound made slightly further back in the mouth than /s/, the sides of the tongue are touching the teeth, and the lips can be a tiny bit rounded. It is most commonly the SH in FISH and SHOE, the [...]
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The Thinking Sound - /ɜː/ Which sound do English speakers make when they think? Er, well, it's /ɜː/ - the central vowel. Difficult for learners because many languages do not have a similar sound. In today's article, we'll explore how to pronounce it, how it's spelt, and how with certain intonation it can mean 'disgusting!'. How to Pronounce /ɜː/ /ɜː/ [...]
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H Lots of British English speakers never pronounce /h/, others pronounce it sometimes, but nobody pronounces it all the time, in other words, it's a grey area. So what is H? When is it silent? Is the letter 'Haitch' or 'Aitch'? Oh, and do we really need it, onestly? /h/ If you’re going to pronounce H, imagine [...]
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'r' - the strangest sound in English? One of the most common sounds in English, but also one of the most difficult for learners. /r/ is both tricky to pronounce, and tricky not to pronounce. In this article we're going to conquer this strangest of English sounds. Sort of. How to pronounce /r/. To make an [...]
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Intrusive /r/ [ssba] What links Karma and Nirvana? Well philosophy is one thing but we’re talking about phonetics. When speaking quite quickly, you’d probably say something like “Karma -r- and Nirvana”. Although there’s no < r > in the spelling, many native speakers will naturally join certain vowel sounds together with a /r/. This [...]
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The schwa /ə/ is the biggest key to English pronunciation a learner can possess. [ssba] It is the invisible star of English speech, but many learners of English pronunciation have never heard of it and do not pronounce it. This article aims to solve that with 4 simple questions....... 1. What is a [...]
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4 Weak Vowels - English Pronunciation [ssba] Anybody who has attended a pronunciation class will know what a ‘schwa’ is: the most common weak vowel of English. There are, in fact, four equally weak vowels in English and they form a very important part of accurate speech. In this paragraph for example, out of 77 [...]
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