How to pronounce

Pronunciation is a vital section of learning a Language. It is essential to know the correct pronunciation in order to have a good command over a language. There are certain rules in English to pronounce the words. You cannot pronounce a words based on its spellings as there are heteronyms which are the words having same spelling but different pronunciation like the words read has different pronunciation with different tenses. It is pronounced as ‘red’ when used in past tense.

Following are some guidelines for correct pronunciation:-

1. Pronunciation of the alphabet ‘Y’ : It is pronounced in the same sound ‘y’ in the words like yet, yummy, yesterday  etc. But at some places ‘Y’ is pronounced as ‘ee’ or ‘ai’.

Example:

It is pronounced as ‘ee’ in the words like copy, tasty, lazy, tricky, naughty, baby etc.

It is pronounced as ‘ai’ in the words like sky, cry, notify, sky, try etc.

2.  Pronunciation of the alphabet ‘C’: It is pronounced like ‘s’ or ‘k’.

It is pronounced like ‘s’ when it is followed by the alphabets ‘e’ or ‘y’.

Examples: city, cycle, ice, cell, cistern, civic etc.

It is pronounced like ‘k’ when it is followed by the vowels  ‘a’, ‘o’, ‘u’, .

Examples: Cat, cap, current, cabbage, country, control, cup etc.

3.  Pronunciation of the alphabet ‘S’: It is usually pronounced as in ‘source’, ‘sun’, ‘serious’.

But it is pronounced as ‘z’ in some words like close, Was, rose, Result, His, boys, girls, as, etc.

In a few words it is also pronounced as ‘zh’ like leisure, pleasure, treasure, whose  etc.

4. Pronunciation of vowels: -

Vowels can be pronounced with a long and a short sound.

 Examples:

Short ‘a’ – Examples: Car, Jar, far, at, sat, bat,

Long ‘a’ - When a word having the vowel ‘a’ ends with the alphabet ‘e’ , the vowel ‘a’ has long sound.

Examples: tape, shape, face, cage, gate, made

Short ‘I’ :  Examples: bid, kid, lid, big, pig, hit, sit, lit

Long ‘I’ - When a word having the vowel ‘i’ ends with the alphabet ‘e’ , the vowel ‘i’ has long sound.

Examples: Kite, Site, Quite, Decide, Reside, Precise etc.

Short ‘o’:

Examples: dog, fog, hot, got, job, not, lot,

Long ‘o’ - When a word having the vowel ‘o’ ends with the alphabet ‘e’ , the vowel ‘o’ has long sound.

Examples: Mode, Rose, Close, Pole, Hope, Rope,

Short ‘u’:

Examples: put, cut, tub, rub, bus, mug , rug etc.

Long ‘u’: When a word having the vowel ‘u’ ends with the alphabet ‘e’ , the vowel ‘u’ has long sound.

Examples: huge, Fuse, Tube, Cube, excuse, misuse etc.

Unpronounceable initials:

In the words starting with ‘kn’ and ‘ps’, leave the initial alphabets and pronounce from the second one.

Examples:

Kn:  Knight is pronounced as “night” and Knife as ‘nife’.

Ps:  Psycho, pseudo,