UNIT 1: INTRODUCING THE AMERICAN PHONETICS SYSTEM (APS)

1. What is the APS? Why do we need to learn APS?

 Unlike the Vietnamese language in which the letters in the alphabet indicate the
pronunciation of the words, the English alphabet does not represent the pronunciation
of words.
 One letter in the English alphabet may have different ways to pronounce. For example:
The letter “A” in these following words has different pronunciations: America, can, war,
table.
 In other cases, two different letters may share the same pronunciation. For example;
The letter “C” and the letter “K” have the same pronunciation in these words: kite, cold,
kind, cut or the letter “C” and the letter “S” have the same pronunciation in these
words: send, cents, sing, cinder.
 If based on the alphabetical spelling of the word to pronounce it, non-native English
speakers are very likely to make lots of mistakes. In order to help English learner to
pronounce English words correctly, a system of phonetic symbols called American
Phonetic Symbols (APS) or American Phonetic Alphabet (APA) is used to indicate the
pronunciation of the word.
 There are two kinds of sound in the APS: consonants and vowels. Those sounds can be
combined to create other sounds or syllables.
2. Vowels:
 In the English alphabet, these five letters are considered vowel letters: a, e, i, o and u.
 Each of those vowel letters has different pronunciations.
 When pronouncing the vowel sounds, we do not use our tongue.
 All vowels are voiced sounds, that is, the sound come directly from the throat with no
air pushed out.
 A vowel can stand along or combine with consonants to create syllables. There is no
syllable in English that does not contain a vowel sound.
 Unstressed vowels usually have the same pronunciation called the “schwa” sound,
pronounced /ə/.
 There are two types of vowels in English pronunciation: short vowels and long vowels.
 They can also be combined to make diphthongs. Diphthong are long vowels.
3. Consonants:
 In the APPS, consonants are sounds that involve other parts of articulation (lips, teeth,
tongue, upper and lower ridges) to pronounce especially the tongue.
 There are two kinds of consonants voiced and voiceless.
 Voiced consonants sounds are produced by the vibration of the vocal cords located in
the throat with no or very little obstruction of other parts of articulation. The following
consonants are voiced: b, d, g, dʒ, j, l, m, n, r, v, w, ð and z.
 Voiceless consonants are produced with no vibrations of the vocal cords. Instead, other
parts of articulation are involved to produce air instead of voice. The following
consonants are voiceless: k, f, h, p, s, t, ʃ, ʧ and θ.
  Certain consonant can be combined to create double or triple consonant clusters.
However, they are not considered syllables. In the other words, consonant alone are not
considered syllables.

Voiced consonants:

/b/: ball, big, boy, bat, hamburger, battery, box.

/d/: dog, dare, duck, dormitory, define, danger.

/g/: girl, good, get, garden, gill, gum.

/dʒ/: gel, ginger, John, jam, just.

/l/: look, live, long, learn, like, linger.

/m/: more, man, monkey, much, mine.

/j/: year, you, yearn, yell.

/n/: not, name, now, neither, narrow.

/r/: rent, run, right, ring, rumor, rat, rock.

/v/: video, avoid, vendor, view, vote.

/w/: want, was, windy, winner.

/ð/: then, those, these, mother, that.

/z/: zoo, zebra, wise, xylophone, easy.

Voiceless consonants:

/k/: count, cut, psychic, chaos, kings, killer.

/f/: fun, fill, fall, photograph, metaphor, enough, rough.

/h/: hair, hand, hurt, hunt, heal.

/p/: pair, pour, pain, power, pink.

/s/: seem, saw, so, singing, sun.

/ʃ/: she, shock, shift, shore, sure, sugar.

/t/: team, attack, tuner, touch, cartoon.

/tʃ/: chair, church, teacher, fetch, much, check.

/θ/: thin, thick, think, thief, breath, tooth.

Semi-vowels: These letter “h”,”r”, “w” and “y” are semi-vowels, because they are considered
consonants in the initial and medial positions. When they are in final positions, they are considered
vowels.
 Initial (Consonant) Medial (Consonant) Final (Vowel)
h Hey, hello, how, hand, huge, Unhealthy, vehicle, c
hope, happy
r
w
y