Accent Amazing

Happy Philippines 🇵🇭 Independence day (June 12)!

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The name of this country is based on the name Philip

Although this name’s counterparts in many European languages has a tense /i/ sound, similar to the English vowel in the word “beat”, the English pronunciation of this name does not have that sound

Instead it has two lax /ɪ/ vowels, as in the word “pitch”

So it’s not /fi.li/ppines but /fɪ.lɪ/ppines

Furthermore, this word has TWO stresses too

The first stress is on the first syllable “Phi” /fɪ/ whereas the second is on the second stress is on the last syllable “ppines”

Because this last syllable starts with a /p/ sound and is stressed, that means there’s aspiration, a puff of air on that /p/ sound

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This post is dedicated to the many Filipinos around the world helping local economies run smoothly, including in my hometown of Hong Kong and VAs like the one who edits my videos

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Have you been pronouncing this country’s name correctly? Let me know in the comments belowǃ

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Choose your (difficult sound) fighter:

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/æ/: the “trap” vowel. Learners often mispronounce this like /ɑ/ or /ʌ/ so “cat” might be mistaken for “cut” “cart”

/i/ vs /ɪ/: the “fleece” and “kit” vowels are often mispronounced somewhere in between, but closer to the /i/ sound, as /ɪ/ is fairely rarely, this makes “peach” sound like “pitch” and “beach sound like…

/u/ vs /ʊ/: the “goose” and “foot” vowels are likewise often conflated, although closer to /u/. This makes “look” sound like “Luke”

/θ/ vs /ð/: These are the two “th” sounds in English. /θ/ may be mispronounced as /s/ or /t/, causing “think” to sound like “sink” or “tink”, whereas /ð/ may be mispronounced as /z/ or /d/, so “then” becomes “zen” or “den”

/ɑ/: the “lot” vowel is often pronounced in a way that sounds more like /ɔ/ which is a fairly non-native accent at least in American English

/oʊ/: the “goat” vowel is a diphthong, but learners often pronounce it as a monophthong, which can cause confusion or just sound non-native.

[pʰ tʰ kʰ] are the aspirated variants of the /p, t, k/ sounds. While aspiration is not necessary for understanding, lack of aspiration is a highly noticeable non-native accent.

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Do you know anyone who struggles with these sounds?

Send them this accent-bunshin no jutsu! 🥷

Why do you sometimes ignore practice notes right in front of you?

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The reason may be because you lack a cue to practice

A cue is a trigger that starts your habit

A 𝗵𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗽 is made up of three parts: the 𝐜𝐮𝐞, the 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, and the 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝.

The cue triggers you to act. The action is the habit itself. The reward is what keeps you coming back.

So when you’re practicing a word, you need a real cue that actually stops you. Don’t put your practice / language reminders somewhere you’ll get used to seeing it.

Put it somewhere it’ll interrupt you every time.

No cue, no habit. It’s that simple!

Send this to a friend who needs this tip!

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What’s up with Spotify’s new disco ball logo?

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Yea I dunno either, but what I do know is that some of y’all pronounce those words incorrectly!

I know the three words all have letters, but because of the words’ morphophonological structure they’re pronounced differently: /ɑ/ like “father” in “Spotify”, and /oʊ/ like “go” in the other two.

This is because “logo” and “disco” have the letters in open syllables, meaning the syllables end with a vowel, as opposed to closed syllables, where the syllables end in a consonant.

Compare:

“logo” (lo-go), which has two /oʊ/ sounds

vs

“lotto” (lot-to), which has an /ɑ/ followed by an /oʊ/ because the first syllable is closed syllable “lot”

(side note: this is a simplification, but it works for this explanation)

Now, you might be thinking: isn’t the in “Spotify” in an open syllable, (spo.ti.fy)?

And you’d be sort of right.

However, English speakers mentally view the word morphologically as (spot.i.fy), with “spot” being the root.

And so that is the vowel we take!

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Hope that helped, my accenteers!

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What other words spelled with have different pronunciation than you expected? Let me know in the comments

And follow to make your accent amazing!

p.s. did you like my logo disco-ball-ified?

The letter represents DIFFERENT VOWELS depending on stress!
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The word “safari” has twice, but each is pronounced differently

The first is unstressed, and so it is reduced to /ə/ with the mouth more closed

The second is stressed, and so it is pronounced /ɑ/, with the mouth more open

In English, all vowel sounds have a stressed and unstressed form, despite being spelled with the same vowel letter
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Can you think of any words with the same vowel letters but with different pronunciations?

Write them below!
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Follow so you can stress vowels correctly!

Beware of hidden glide sounds!

A glide is a type of sound that borders a vowel and even may seem like a type of vowel.

This makes sense since glides are also known as “semivowels”

These include sounds like “y” or /j/, and “w” or /w/.

These are fairly obvious when the world is spelled with or like in words such as “yap” and “win”,

However, they are also found in a few other situations, such as…

At the end of tense vowels like /i/, so words like “he” and “tree” actually have a bit of a “y”-like sound at the end.

Between vowels, such as “neon” [niʲɑn] or in “doer” [duʷər]

This is quite a subtle sound, but it does play a part to make your accent sound amazingǃ

Can you think of any other words that have hidden glide sounds? Comment them belowǃ

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