Correct reading in English. Pronunciation of English sounds

Having studied the Russian alphabet, we can easily read any texts. But to read correctly in English you will have to put in more effort, because there are many discrepancies between the spelling and pronunciation of words. If you decide to learn this language on your own and cannot understand how to read words in English correctly, then this material– exactly what you need. Today we will look at the nuances of pronunciation of English letters and letter combinations, and find out how easy it is to learn to read English from scratch. A table that shows all the letters and their sounds will help you learn the rules of reading English for beginners.

First, let's get to know the most important law reading in English - the rule of open and closed syllables. There is no similar norm in the Russian language, so we will analyze in detail what it is. Please pay attention to the transcription.

An open syllable is a syllable that ends with a vowel sound. As a rule, it occurs in the following cases:

• The word ends in a vowel, so the last syllable is always open: t ake[take].*
• A vowel is followed by a consonant, followed by another vowel sound: ed uca tion [education].
• There are two vowels adjacent to the word: cr ue l [cruel].

*Final e in most cases it is considered “dumb”, that is, it is not pronounced, but appears at the heart of the word precisely to form an open syllable.

In open syllables, the vowel is always pronounced smoothly and drawn out. Accordingly, closed syllables are all those syllables in which the vowel sound is closed by a consonant and therefore sounds short and abrupt: c ut[cat].

In addition, special reading rules in English language characteristic of syllables in which the vowel sound ends with the letter r. The fact is that in the British version of the pronunciation of such syllables, the letter r is often completely omitted, i.e. not pronounced. Therefore, there are two options for reading such letter combinations:

1. In an open syllable, when r is surrounded by vowels, only both vowels are read: c are[keea]. In such cases, the last e will not be dumb.
2. In a closed syllable ( voice+r+acc.), r is also unreadable, but affects the sound of the vowel sound, making it longer: start [staat]

The rule of open and closed syllables is the basic law of reading in English, although there are many exceptions to it. But it’s too early to teach exceptions without knowing the main rules. Therefore, now we will look at the sound options of all letters and letter combinations.

Rules for reading English for beginners - letter and sound correspondence table

Even if you started learning English and reading it from scratch, you are probably already familiar with the spelling and sound of all the letters of the English alphabet. But, as we already learned from the previous section, when reading, the pronunciation of letters depends on the type of syllable or letter combination. Therefore, in the tables below you can find several sound options for the same letter. But don't be alarmed, there will be an accessible explanation for each case. So, let's continue to learn English for beginners and learn the rules of reading in English.

Consonants

Let's start with the easiest thing: with a table of consonants, the pronunciation of which is similar to the Russian sound.

*English d and t are pronounced with more aspiration than their Russian counterparts.

**w is pronounced with the lips extended into a tube, the result is something between the Russian sounds v and u.

Now let's look at more complex letters.

We will also study letter combinations of consonants in English.

In addition, it is worth considering that the English language never allows consonants at the very end of a word to be deafened. Otherwise, you may say something completely different from what you wanted. For example: back [back] – behind, behind; bag [bag] – bag, sack.

Vowels

It is much more difficult to cope with reading English vowels, but the already familiar rules of open and closed syllables will help us understand it. We take them into service and learn to read the vowels of the English language correctly.

Do not forget that in a closed syllable all letters are pronounced briefly.

And the vowels of an open syllable are always smooth and drawn out.

We remember that the letter r after a vowel, as a rule, is not pronounced.

Now we know how to read vowels in English words Oh. But for perfect reading in English, it is necessary to study one more point.

Diphthongs and triphthongs in English

An important aspect of English for beginners is diphthongs and triphthongs, i.e. combinations of two or three letters that have a special sound. Their pronunciation is called sliding, because. First, the main sound is pronounced intensively, and then it is smoothly transferred to the secondary sound. Diphthongs are a kind of exception and do not obey general grammatical laws, so they can only be learned by heart. The table below will help us learn the rules for reading English diphthongs for beginners.

*doubling the letter indicates the length of the first sound in relation to the second.

So, we have looked at the main nuances of reading in English. Treat the stated rules responsibly: conduct reading lessons more often and be sure to learn to distinguish between types of syllables in English. Otherwise, you will make gross mistakes in pronunciation, which will lead to a complete misunderstanding of your words by the interlocutor. Good luck in learning English and see you again!

There are 26 letters in the English language. IN different combinations and positions they represent 44 sounds.
In the English language, there are 24 consonant sounds, and they are represented in writing by 20 letters: Bb; Cc; Dd; Ff; Gg ; Hh; Jj; Kk; LI; mm; Nn; Pp; Qq; Rr; Ss; Tt; Vv; Ww; Xx; Zz.
In the English language, there are 12 vowel sounds and 8 diphthongs, and they are represented in writing by 6 letters: Aa; Ee; li; Oo; Uu; Yy.

Video:

[English language. Beginner course. Maria Rarenko. First educational channel.]

Transcription and stress

Phonetic transcription is an international system of symbols used to show exactly how words should be pronounced. Each sound is shown with a separate icon. These icons are always written in square brackets.
The transcription indicates verbal stress (which syllable in the word the stress falls on). Accent mark [‘] placed before the stressed syllable.

English consonants

Features of English consonants
1. English consonants expressed by letters b, f, g, m, s, v, z, are close in pronunciation to the corresponding Russian consonants, but should sound more energetic and intense.
2. English consonants are not softened.
3. Voiced consonants are never deafened - neither before voiceless consonants, nor at the end of a word.
4. Double consonants, that is, two identical consonants next to each other, are always pronounced as one sound.
5. Some English consonants are pronounced aspirated: the tip of the tongue must be pressed firmly against the alveoli (the tubercles where the teeth are attached to the gums). Then the air between the tongue and teeth will pass with force, and the result will be a noise (explosion), that is, aspiration.

Rules for reading consonant letters in English: ,

English vowel sounds

The reading of each vowel depends on:
1. from other letters standing next to it, in front of it or behind it;
2. from being in a shock or non-stress position.

Rules for reading vowels in English: ,

This article is for those who only learning to read English. The twenty-first lesson is devoted to the topic "English alphabet", and to remember it better, a video is attached to the alphabet (classic British version).

There are two methods of teaching reading: from sound to letter And from letter to sound. The first twenty lessons of the cycle were based on the methodology "from sound to letter" and now that we've passed all english sounds, you can safely move to another level. Therefore, in the next five lessons we will go "from letter to sound" and today it's time to learn English alphabet.

In Lesson #21 you will learn that

• There are only 6 vowels in English;
• what is an open syllable?
• how vowels are read in an open syllable.

Let's start with English alphabet. Listen to the song "ABC", watch the video and remember how to pronounce letters in English. Total in English 6 vowels And 20 consonants.

English Alphabet Video ABC Song

(classic British version)

Learned English alphabet? Then let's move on. This is what the alphabet looks like in writing: Rules for reading vowels in English

REMEMBER:

1. total in English 6 vowels:

Aa —

Ee —

II —

Oo —

Uu —

Yy —

1. a vowel under stress is read in 4 ways, depending on what type of syllable it is in. In total there are 24 sounds.

Types of syllables in English

Rule (main thing). In an open syllable, the vowel letter is read as in the alphabet.

f a mous = f a-mous

c u cumber=c u-cum-ber

In English there is also conditionally open syllable. These are one-syllable words with an "e" at the end. EXAMPLES. P e te, l a te, c o ke.

Letter e at the end of a word unreadable and called " e-mute". It shows that the root vowel must be read, as in the alphabet. There are a lot of such words in the English language.

How to divide a word into syllables? (repetition)

How to divide a word into syllables? Let's take, for example, the word CUCUMBER (cucumber) and divide it into syllables.

General rule that's how it is: as many vowels as there are syllables.

C U C U M.B. E R - three vowels, therefore three syllables: C U-C U M-B E R

1. The first syllable ends in a vowel => he open
2. The second syllable ends in a consonant => he closed
3. The third syllable ends in a consonant => he too closed

Parsing:

BER: the letter combination ER at the end of a word is read as [ə]

But don't worry about it just yet, the most important thing to remember is that vowels in English in an OPEN SYLLABLE they are read as in the alphabet. Therefore, if you have learned the English alphabet (the video, of course, will speed up this process), then you can already read the words with open syllable.

Now let's get started repeating the rules for reading vowels. Let me remind you that there are only 6 of them. Let's take the first letter of the alphabet. It reads "Hey". It's easy to remember if you look at the picture. " Hey, who eats nuts? Find the sound and listen to how it is pronounced -

So, let's move on to reading the first vowel of the English alphabet. Letter A in a stressed syllable denotes 4 sounds. See TABLE below. Moreover, if letter A stands in an unstressed syllable, it is read [ə] .

So, before you start reading first vowel of the English alphabet, summarize:

• in the first (open) type of syllable (I) all stressed vowels are read as in the alphabet
• and in the second (II), third (III) and fourth (IV) - according to the table

Reading the English letter A in four syllable types

So, let's start reading. Here in front of you 4 syllable types (I - open, II-closed, III, IV). The square brackets indicate how to pronounce the letter Aa in this type of syllable UNDER Stress. Phrases are tongue twisters that need to be repeated many times to remember. reading the letter Aa in the appropriate syllable type.

For those who have just joined. A dictionary is connected to the site, click on a word and you will hear it correct pronunciation. To hear how to pronounce the sound in [square brackets], look it up in the phonemic chart.

Reading the vowel Aa in 4 types of syllables. Tongue Twisters

1. - This l a ke is a f a mouse pl a ce in W a les. (see Lesson #20)

2. [æ] - Abl a ck c a ts a t on a m a t and a te a f a t r a t. (see Lesson #3)

3. — The p ar ks, g ar dens and f ar ms are l ar ge and ch ar ming. (Lesson #6)

4. - My p are nts* take c are of r are h are s. (see Lesson #18)

LISTEN to how the sounds are pronounced , [æ], , —

*parents – [`peərənts]

Pronunciation is important! For you, the author's pronunciation lessons:

Phonetic exercises for reading the letter A in open and closed syllables

A(I,II):

lake, jam, apple, famous, name, fan, trade, lamp, maze, batman, gate, stand, to behave, matter, skate, as, cable, take, rabbit, amazing , to decamp, to debate, Danish, raffish, rally, slake, snake, slalom, slam, fate, place, blame, can, rage, frank, splash, spade, damp, African, admiral, age, and, to arrange, to attack;

to is a verb feature. Most verbs have stress on the second syllable

Phonetic exercises for reading the letter A in the third and fourth type of syllable

A (III,IV):

car, large, care, rare, cart, hare, chart, card, stare, dark, market, bare, yard, star, glare, far, bar, apartment, parents, spare, scare, lark, mare, bare, dare, carpet, particle, barefoot, March, larch, square.

Exceptions:
1 – have, vase
2 – any, many [`meni], ate

In an unstressed syllable A is read as [ə]:
a bout, a round, a cross, to a ttack, alpha bet, Africa, to a dvise, to a dress

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Phonetic exercises for practicing reading the letter A with audio recording and answers (closed content)

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Name: Phonetic exercises with audio recording

Description: Access to restricted content *Repeat the rules for reading in English*

So, let's sum it up results of the twenty-first lesson on teaching English reading and pronunciation at the same time:

• you have learned the English alphabet;
• you learned what an open syllable is in English;
• do you know how to read a vowel letter Ahh in an open syllable;
• you have consolidated the pronunciation of the English sounds , [æ], , .

Greetings, friends.

I think each of you - whether you are a parent or a teacher - understands that the rules for reading English for children differ from the rules for adults, but not in content, but in the volume and presentation of the material.

For preschoolers or children school age who are just starting to learn English, you need to give such information in very portions, accompanying all this with bright pictures, video and audio materials. Of course, you should immediately give memorable examples and, if possible, reinforce everything with exercises. Then this topic will be easy and even interesting for the young student.

On this page you will find very colorful and useful tables with the basic vowel sounds of the English language. ().

In the first table you can see the basic vowel letters and how to read them.

In the second table - the most common combinations of vowels in words and also ways to read them.

And in the third and fourth — examples of sentences with words containing the mentioned letters and combinations.

How to work with them?

1. First, explain to your child that each vowel letter in English can be read differently and, using table 1, look at the examples and read them together (you can also study if it is not clear to the child).
2. Then talk about the fact that in the English language there are vowel letters that often stand next to each other, and in this case they will sound differently together. You will see and read this together using the examples from the 2nd table.
3. In the third and fourth tables, you and your child will be able to read entire sentences, each of which contains several words with the same vowel sounds (they are underlined). Before each example sentence, a transcription icon with the sound being practiced is highlighted in red. Read it first, and then the whole sentence.

To make it easier for you, I recorded audio for these materials. Listen and practice.

Letters and sounds

Comment to table 1: If you noticed, each vowel letter in the English language can be read in two ways: either the way we read it in the alphabet, or another way. So, usually in alphabetical order the letters "a, e, i, o, u" are read in words that end with a letter "e" or consisting of more than one syllable . But in short monosyllabic words ending with a consonant, they are read differently. You need to remember this! Reading a letter "y" you also need to remember in two ways - but here the logic is different - in in short words, where it is in last place, we read it alphabetically (to be precise, almost alphabetically), and in long ones - in a different way.

Regularly re-read with your children examples of short monosyllabic and longer English words with vowel letters - then their reading rules will be “written” in the child’s memory, and subsequently he will be able to use the method of analogy to recognize the way in which the letter will be read. You will find a lot of similar practice in mine.

Example sentences

Hope you enjoyed it!

By the way, about important rules When teaching a child to read correctly in English, I wrote - there you will also find a little practice with the spoken material.

How to learn to read English (M. Kaufman) - This is a very interesting guide for children. What is very remarkable is that in parallel with learning to read, acquaintance with the English-speaking culture occurs. This awakens the child’s interest and curiosity in the language... And interest, as you know, is already 50% of success! If not more...

If you have any questions, write and ask them in the comments - I will be happy to help.

The rules of reading in English cannot be called simple. But you have to understand them at the very beginning of training - otherwise you won’t be able to move forward. Therefore, the rules for reading English for beginners (and for children) are usually stated concisely and clearly - and thank you for that. Transcriptions with examples and others are very helpful auxiliary materials(tables, exercises) and, of course, constant practice (reading aloud and listening).

Transcription- is the transmission of sound in writing using special symbols. In transcription, each sound has its own special sign.

True, there are features of transcription of reading in English that are difficult for Russian-speaking students. These difficulties are due to objective differences in pronunciation in English and Russian. Our language has simply been “different” since childhood, and relearning is always difficult. Especially when you consider that sounds in English are often pronounced differently from how they are written. Historically, this happened due to large quantity dialects in which the same letters and combinations of letters were read differently. But this doesn’t make it any easier for us.

Rules for reading transcriptions in English

Different English teachers solve this difficult problem in different ways. For example, they use the so-called “English transcription in Russian,” that is, writing English words in Russian letters. To be honest, we do not support this technique. Because it does not allow you to truly learn English pronunciation correctly. It is only possible to very approximately convey the pronunciation of English words in Russian letters. Well, there are no English sounds in the Russian language, and the seemingly similar pronunciation of English and Russian sounds is still different.

Therefore, we are in favor of trying and learning the phonetic symbols with which transcriptions are written from the very beginning. This will help you understand and remember the rules of reading English for beginners. And in the future, English lessons will be much easier. As for the transmission of English sounds in Russian letters, this technique is needed for transliteration (like), but not for training pronunciation.

Rules for reading vowels in English

As we have already noted, letters and sounds in English often do not match. Moreover, there are many more sounds: 44 sounds for only 26 letters. Linguists even joke about this:

“We write Liverpool and we read Manchester”

There is such a big difference between a written word and its pronunciation in English. Well, let's start in order. From syllables that affect the reading of vowels. Syllables in English (as in any other language) are open and closed:

• Open syllable ends with vowel. It can be in the middle of a word or be the last word. For example: age, blue, bye, fly, go, etc.
• Closed syllable ends with I agree. It can also stand in the middle of a word or be the last one in a word. For example: bed, big, box, hungry, stand, etc.

Here is a table that explains how the same letter is read differently in closed and open syllables and in different positions in a word:

Rules for reading consonants in English

Consonants in English are less challenging than vowels. Only some of them (C, S, T, X and G) are read differently depending on their position in the word and neighboring sounds. And for clarity, here is the table again:

How are letter combinations read in English?

So, after vowels and consonants, we get to letter combinations. Now we will talk about the rules for reading syllables, not individual letters. And this is correct - after all, in words, letters are combined, so we rarely have to read individual sounds. And in syllables, sounds influence each other, so the following table contains the basic rules for reading syllables and combinations of consonant letters:

Live and other rules of reading in English

All students have different language and listening abilities. If the rules of reading in English are difficult, use one of the following techniques:

• Living rules for reading English. This is a fairly well-known technique for teaching reading and pronunciation in English. It is designed mainly for children, and the rules of English reading are presented in the most accessible way. Memorization is made easier by funny poems and tongue twisters. It makes sense to try to get your child interested in English from the very beginning of learning.
• Applications for learning English. We recently discussed a whole series. In most of them you can not only read, but also listen to new words. The same function is available in online translators - use it more often.
• Exercises on reading rules. There are many of them, but they all come down to training the skill to distinguish different sounds. For example:

Given a list of words ( what, who, wrestling, when, why, whose, wrong, where, whom, write, white, which, whole, wrangler). You need to distribute these words into groups with the sound that is pronounced in them: [w], [h] or [r].

Or words from another list ( give, good, cage, ginger, girl, gypsy, gold, grey, grace, beige, gift, gymnastics) distribute into two groups: one with the sound [g], the second - with the sound .

The reading rules exercises may seem complicated, but don't try to do them by memorizing every rule. Better try to understand not the rules, but the principles of reading English sounds. Do several exercises on reading rules to know exactly how to read some of the same type of words. The more you read and listen in English, the easier it will be to remember the correct pronunciation.

So our main advice is universal: practice, practice and once again practice of communicating and reading in English will help you learn the language easily and effectively!