The Canadian Accent416-840-7680

The vowels are A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y. However, there are 15 different vowel sounds. Some are quite different such as the sound in pat. This sound is often confused with either pot or pet.

Consonants are all the other letters. Some examples of consonant sounds are /b/, /k/, /th/, /r/, /l/. Pronunciation of the individual sounds can be difficult, but we need to move quickly beyond individual sounds to consonant clusters, such as /str/ in street or /rld/ in world. Some simple techniques will help produce these sounds more comfortably. Sometimes, the word can be made simpler. Months, for example, can be pronounced /mons/ - 1 month, 2 mons, etc. Asked can be pronounced /ast/, as in I /ast/ you a question.

Most likely you know that in every word 1 syllable is stressed and the others are not. This is too simple and inhibits communication. Linguists, academics who study language, say there are actually 6 levels of stress. Needless to say, learning or teaching 6 levels of word stress is too difficult. Learning 3 levels of stress is fairly easy to learn and allows you to speak much more clearly. An example is cancellation. The word has 4 syllables - can, cel, la, tion. The word stress is CAN cel LA tion, where CAN is semi-stressed, cel and tion are unstressed, and LA is stressed.

Rhythm is very similar to word stress. Whereas word stress is about 1 word, rhythm is related to groups of words - phrases, clauses, sentences. Some words are clear and others are unclear, for example the phrase MAY i HELP you? If you notice, both cancellation and May I help you? have the same stress pattern.

Another illustration of rhythm is the following:

KIDS PLAY GAMES

theKIDS PLAY theGAMES

theKIDS havePLAYED theGAMES

theKIDS willhavePLAYED theGAMES

In each line, there are 3 beats, so each line is spoken in relatively the same amount of time.