Learn English with Mr. Duncan - Lesson 36 (Phonetics)

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You know the world of English is a fun

and exciting place to be I'm so glad you

could join me for another lesson hi

everybody this is mr. Duncan in England

how are you today are you okay I hope so

are you happy I hope so in our lesson

today we will take a look at the system

that is designed to make learning

English easier or so we are told in this

lesson we will talk about phonetics

you

I have something in my hand do you want

to see it it's my big dictionary there

can be no doubt about the popularity of

English these days and because of this

many people are taking up the challenge

of learning and teaching the language

over the years there have been many new

ways of overcoming this task one popular

method is to group all of the english

sounds into easy-to-read symbols we call

this system the international phonetic

alphabet or IPA for short the idea

behind this is to make words much easier

to pronounce and therefore improve the

learners level of English much quicker

why do we need phonetics the reason why

we need a phonetic code is because some

English letters have more than one sound

and because some letters when joined

together in a word actually create a new

sound of their own also there is the

silent letter that can appear within a

word but we will leave that one for

another lesson as you may already know

the English alphabet is split into two

groups of letters they are consonants

and vowels we also use these two groups

of sounds to build up the phonetic code

so let's take a look at the first group

consonants

good as it get cut as in lock the as in

this yeah as in yes sure as in chip hmm

as in ring as in she jus as in jaw as in

thin Shh as a decision ah as in hat yeah

as in bed her as in father e as in sit e

as in cozy ah as in hot o as in run o as

in put

ah as in arm air as in chair earth as in

her e as in c o as in saw who as in too

i as in my ow as in how a as in day Oh

as in no ear as in near boy as in boy or

as in poor higher as in fire our as in

sour

all the phonetic sounds useful some

people do not like the phonetic alphabet

and believe that it actually makes

learning English more complicated in

harder to grasp while others think that

the code helps to speed up the process

of learning English especially for those

using it as a second language many

students find that having to keep

referring to the code takes the fun out

of English and it eventually becomes

boring and turns into a chore the other

problem with phonetics is that it does

not take into account the different

accents and dialects of all the regions

that use English a good example of this

is the varying use of the letter A in

words such as bath path and draft these

words are spoken differently depending

on the local accent and the way in which

the words were taught to be pronounced

in the first place

generally speaking the phonetic alphabet

is a great way to learn the various

sounds that exists within English but my

advice is not to rely on it too much try

to get used to remembering the

formulation of letters and how they vary

from word to word finally be aware of

how much you rely on phonetics as it can

slow down your improvement or at the

very worst make the subject of English

become boring and dull before I finish

my lesson today I would like to say a

special hello to my new friends watching

in Argentina Brazil China Italy Japan

Malaysia Mexico Pakistan Poland Spain

and the United Kingdom this is mr.

Duncan in England saying thank you for

joining me today and I will see you all

again very soon to tell for now