Spoken English presents wide variation in pronunciation. In spite of that wide variation, three standard pronunciations are distinguished: (1) The Received Pronunciation, also called Oxford English or BBC English, is the standard pronunciation of British English; (2) The General American is the accent considered as standard in North America, and as such it is the pronunciation heard in most of American films, TV series, and national news; (3) The General Australian is the English spoken in Australia. However, these three main accents should be interpreted as broad categories, for the English language has a great and rich diversity of varieties.
In the USA the most widespread type of lang is GA. Like RP in GB GA in America is the social standard: it is religionally neutral, it is used by radio, by TV, in science, it is spoken by educated Americans.
Here are some detailed American English pronunciation rules and ideas to help you to pronounce some of the most difficult American English sounds.
- Understand the differences between words like cane and can. Or rod and rode. Pay attention to how the silent “e” at the end changes the sound of the vowel.
- Familiarize yourself with words that have common endings so that you can group them and master the pronounciations more efficiently.
- Look out for similarites in vowel combinations, especially homonyms. These can get confusing especially because some combinations like “oar” (весло) and “ore” (руда) have the same sound but are spelled differently.
- While you are learning proper American pronounciation techniques, always keep in mind that in the case of some sounds, like “r” you have to use your tongue to make the correct sound.These seem to be the most challenging sounds because some languages, like French, do not require any sounds in which you put your tongue between your teeth, like “th.”
