Top 10 Consonant Mistakes in American English by English Learners

Good morning, everyone. It is Jennifer from Tarle speech. Let's learn the top 10 consonant mistakes that many English learners make. And we are going to be talking about the top 10 consonant mistakes. Okay. All right. Number one, we have the TH sound. Some common mistakes for the TH sound. People will say a number of things for the T, F, F, D, Z, V. I think what is so confusing for listeners about the TH sound is when my students and English learners use more than one sound instead of a TH sound. So if you're consistent and you use partner sounds, and what I mean by that are those sounds that are made the same in the mouth, but the voicing is different. That's totally fine. It's when you maybe say a T sometimes, then an F sometimes, then a Z sometimes. That's when this gets a little more confusing. So some things that I might hear instead of people saying thin, I might hear people say tin or fin or thin. I don't want to get too into the woods today, but we do have two different TH sounds. One is voiced. One is voiceless. So voiceless means it's a little bit softer. Your voice box is not on and moving. And so that is the TH sound. And most people tend to use another voiceless sound like T instead of that voiceless TH. If we have the voiced TH in words, like we hear in this, that, these, those, a little stronger, a little harder, you have your voice box on and vibrating. Most people will use another voice sound, dat, zat, or vat instead of that. So how do we fix this? What you are going to do is you are going to stick your tongue out of your mouth. Let me get a little bit closer here. Okay. My tongue is out of my mouth. You can see I have like a little bit of a cup on my tongue that is allowing air to keep moving out of my mouth. And then the air can move out. And that's I get that longer sound, that, or vvv. Your tongue is doing the same thing. Your voice box is the only thing that's different. The mistake is that people stop the air. So continuing in the air is key. So if people stop the air, then that is when you hear tt or dip. So you're stopping the air by touching the back of the top front teeth. Some people will also stop the air with their tongue out of their mouth. So many people do put their tongue out of their mouth, but then they will do that. So the key is again, allow that air to keep moving out of the mouth and think about having your mouth open and a little more relaxed, like your lips, because if you don't, then you might get that tt or vvv sound and there you are constricting the air with your teeth. Okay. So let's try some words here. All right. I'm going to read the words and then I want you to repeat after me after I go through all of them. Okay, here we go. Think, thank, this, that. Bathroom, without, brother, mother. And then a sentence. Thank your brother and mother for the thoughtful gift. All right. Repeat after me. Think, thank, this, that. Bathroom, without, brother, mother. Thank your brother and mother for the thoughtful gift. Okay. Now let me put myself back. All right. Now let's try the whole list all together. Think, thank, this, that. Bathroom, without, brother, mother. Thank your brother and mother for the thoughtful gift. Okay. So that is the th sound. Just keep in mind, you need to keep that air moving. That is the big takeaway. Air needs to continuously move out of your mouth. Moving on to sound number two, we have the ng sound. So I'm writing this sound with two letters because this is how we spell the sound. We spell the ng sound with two letters, n and g. And those letters go together, again, in spelling to tell us that we are going to say the ng sound. If we were using a phonetic symbol, it would be sort of the n with that little end to it. So the reason I'm teaching this with just the ng is because that is the spelling and many of my students make a mistake because of the spelling. So many of my students will say n plus a g sound. And this is not an n and then a g. It's an ng. There are reasons in the country where native speakers will say sing and then they add a really strong g at the end. So you can do that and that's totally fine. But if you want to be fancy and you want to actually say the ng sound, we're going to learn that right now. The other mistake that I hear my students make is they will say just an n sound. So instead of thing, they will say sin. And instead of thing, I hear a lot of people say sink. And they'll have that d voicing on that g and they will make that the k sound. Every once in a while, this is a little more rare, I will hear people actually say an m sound and I didn't add that because that is sort of the exception. And then people do that because the nasal sounds, all of these sounds that go out of your nose, which is the m, the n and the ng. They all sound so very similar, even to a native speaker. These sound very, very similar. So every once in a while, I hear that. So for this ng sound, think about the k and the g sound. So most people, in fact, all the students that I work with typically can say the k and the g sound. That is where your tongue needs to be. Tip of the tongue down and back of the tongue is pulled high up. And what you are going to do, I see I have an error on my slides. We are not touching the alveolar ridge. The tip of your tongue is low in your mouth and the back of the tongue is pulled high up. So you have ng, ng, ng and the air is moving out of your nose. Okay. All right. So let's try some words. I'm going to have you just listen. Anger, younger, angle, ring, strong, giving. Younger people always think that traveling is exciting. Okay. Repeat after me. Anger, younger, angle, ring, strong, giving. Younger people always think that traveling is exciting. Okay. Let's try all of those together. Anger, younger, angle, ring, strong, giving. Younger people always think that traveling is exciting. Hey, everybody. How did you do? Any questions before we move on? Okay. I'm going to ask my husband who is on here helping me to post the master class playlist for the th sounds and for the ng sounds. So I'm hoping he can find those. If he can't, we will post those at the end. So I do have a master class series, which is every week I'm posting a full lesson on how to pronounce each sound in American English. And then for the rest of the week, I am posting follow along lessons that are a throwback from many years ago. And then you can follow along and practice with me. Okay. So there's one link in there. I'm not quite sure what this one is for. We'll have that for you in a second, but here is one link to one of the playlists. So Rob will let us know that in a minute. Okay. While he is putting that in, let's move on to the next sound. And the next sound that we have is the V sound. Okay. This sound is the nemesis of so many of my students. And instead of the V sound, instead of I will hear people say or. So for the V sound, we are going to say very not wary and not Barry. The sound is so smiling lips, and you're really not going to be smiling like that. However, if you think about pulling your lips into a smiling shape, that is going to help a lot because the mistake is puckering too much. It is not a wound. It is. And also it is not a buff with your lips completely closed. It is again, smiling or your lips are a little more open. Okay. So again, the sound is very for the V not wary and not Barry. Okay. So open and smiling lips and the air must continue out of the mouth. We do have some constriction with this sound. And I explain that by saying you're going to gently bite the inside or the outside of the bottom lip. And that means your teeth are just kind of getting really, really close or touching, right? So I can also do with my teeth out of my mouth. I make mine with my teeth inside of my mouth, just kind of constricting that air. The air needs to keep moving out of the mouth. All right. Let's try some words here. Again, you know, the drill, just go ahead and listen. So we have void, voice, very, advance, avoid, forever, have, love, move. And the sentence, I avoid listening to my voice. All right. Now repeat after me. Void, voice, very, advance, avoid, forever, have, love, move. I avoid listening to my voice. Okay. One more time. Void, voice, very, advance, avoid, forever, have, love, move. I avoid listening to my voice. Okay. How did everybody do? Any questions? Anyone? Okay. And then I am going to put in here the V sound playlist. And my lovely assistant will go ahead and add the link here. So this is going to be the V sound playlist next. Okay. All right. So because we had that mistake, this is going to be kind of an easy one to go through because this is the other mistake that I hear a lot is people say W, not V. So I could have kind of made this into one slide, but I thought it was easier to do two. So really the confusion here is do I use W? Do I use V? The W sound, what I hear most of the time is people say V instead of W. So people will say but instead of what. That is the big mistake. And again, it's confusion between V and W. So W is puckered, left, woo, woo, woo. For spelling, if you see W or WH, we are going to use the W sound, woo, always. And then if you see the V letter, we are going to use the V sound. So spelling is pretty helpful here. And the key is going to be just figuring out what to do with your lips. Okay. Puckered lips for this sound. It is easy. Okay. So let's try some words. All right. Work, woman, what, away, coward, beware. The woman has a lot of work to do since she has been away for a while. So we don't have a W sound at the end of words in English. Okay. Repeat after me. Work, woman, what, away, coward, beware. The woman has a lot of work to do since she has been away for a while. All right. Let's try each row. Work, woman, what, away, coward, beware. The woman has a lot of work to do since she has been away for a while. Okay. Great job. Moving on to a sound that everyone struggles with. It is the Z sound. I do want to add a caveat that oftentimes the mistake is because of how words are spelled. Many times in American English we spell a word with the letter S, but we pronounce the letter Z. So if you are from a language background where spelling is how you read the word and it's always correct for pronunciation, this sound is going to be a struggle for you. So for many of my students, it's not that they can't say the Z sound. It's that they don't read the Z sound correctly. I do have a class on the Z sound. It's old. And I'm probably going to be redoing that as well because a lot of people continue to ask, how do I know when to say S versus Z when I'm reading a word? So the big mistake that I see here, again, number one is going to be that spelling and people are going to say S instead of Z. The other mistake that I hear is that sometimes people touch their tongue to the T and they'll say ja. So they'll say gen instead of zen. So for the Z sound, the tongue does not touch the front teeth, does not touch at all. The air is going to keep moving. The Z sound is exactly the same as the S sound. That's exactly the same with what you do with your mouth. The difference is going to be the voicing. So for us, we have no voicing, no vibration of the vocal cords. And for the Z, the voice box is on and moving and we have vibration. Alright, let's try some words. Just go ahead and listen. Zoo. Zip. Zero. Music. Busy. Puzzle. Dogs. Plays. Buzz. I was busy doing a puzzle and listening to music with my friends. Okay, let's try some words. Zoo. Zip. Zero. Music. Busy. Puzzle. Dogs. Plays. I was busy doing a puzzle and listening to music with my friends. Okay, let's do each row one more time. Zoo. Zip. Zero. Music. Busy. Puzzle. Dogs. Plays. Buzz. I was busy doing a puzzle and listening to music with my friends. Okay, and in the chat, we have the Z sound playlist. So you can check that out if you want to do some practice with the Z sound. Okay, everybody, we are halfway there. And this next set of sounds, I'm teaching them separately, but they sort of all smoosh together. I'm going to give you a little preview, and then we will go through all of them. So we just talked about the Z sound. So Z and S are confusing mainly because of the spelling for most people. Then we have this S-H sound, ch, C-H, ch, and J, j. So all of these sounds, again, j and z, these all tend to be really confusing, and people sort of just change these around. So we're going to go through each sound, but just know that the mistakes are sort of just confusion in general with all of this, this whole group of sounds that we're going to be talking about. Okay? All right. So let's start with this S-H sound. And for S-H, again, we have a spelling here. This is called a digraph. A digraph is two letters that we pronounce as one sound. We do not say s. It's not S plus H. It's this new sound, sh. So the phonetic symbol is sort of that super long F-looking symbol. And so this is the sh sound spelled with two letters. I hear people say S, I hear people say C-H, and I hear people say S plus H. So people will say chef. They will say chef or chef. They will say he or she, and they will say seat or sheet. This is a really confusing set of letters, and a lot of the issues are because of the spelling. For many of my students just learning that this is called a digraph, two written letters that equal one sound, that is actually very helpful. So for this sound, rounded lips, sh. Our lips are not pulled back, smiling, or an S. It's not s. It is sh. So when you pucker your lips, your lips are rounded, the air is going to keep moving, and your tongue is going to be sort of smooshed in the middle of your mouth, but it is not touching the teeth. So just for the sound, think about don't touch the teeth, and that's going to help most people. All right, let's give some words a try. Just listen. She, ship, shiver, wishes, tissue, machine, cash, dish, push. She wants to ship the dishes to Shelly. All right, repeat after me. She, ship, shiver, wishes, tissue, machine, cash, dish, push. She wants to ship the dishes to Shelly. All right, she, ship, shiver, wishes, tissue, machine, cash, dish, push. She wants to ship the dishes to Shelly. Okay, awesome. And we have the sh sound playlist. That will be the master class, and in that master class, I talk about spelling. So if you're struggling with, I don't know when to say the sound when I'm reading, check out that master class, and then in each of these playlists, you will find follow-along practice for each of the words, okay, or for each of the sounds rather. All right, moving on to the ch sound. Again, you already know that some people say sh for the sound instead, and I also hear s, so I will hear people say ship or sip instead of chip, and the key here is to touch the teeth. You're going to touch the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge, the back of the top front teeth, and then your tongue is going to pull back. Okay. All right, so just listen to some of the words here. Chew, chat, charter, posture, question, watching, each, which, children ask a lot of questions. Okay, repeat after me. Chew, chat, charter, posture, question, watching. Each, which, children ask a lot of questions. All right, one more time. Chew, chat, charter, posture, question, watching. Each, which, children ask a lot of questions. All right, very good. All right, moving on to the j sound. This j sound is not common in a lot of major languages in the world, and so people just don't know what to do, so if you don't have the sound, you use something that's similar, so I hear all kinds of things for I sometimes hear d, j, z, or ch. All right, so I will hear den, zen, or gen, or gen, and etch, or edge. Okay, so what you are going to do for this sound is you are going to start by touching the tip of the tongue to the back of the top front teeth. Okay, then your tongue is going to move into the middle of the mouth. Juh, juh, juh. Then you are going to have the air sort of just puffing out of your mouth. Okay, so the key is touch the tip of the tongue to the back of the top front teeth. All right, so I see a mistake on my slide, so I am not going to show that to you, and instead, I am going to just read off of my actual page here. Okay, so repeat after, just let me read first, and then you can repeat after me. Okay, job, joke, juice, project, adjust, magic, bridge, edge, cage. Jen did a great job with the project. Okay, repeat after me. Job, joke, juice, project, adjust, magic, bridge, edge, cage. Jen did a great job with the project. Okay, now we have our last two sounds, and these two sounds, they also are sort of in this, like, I'm going to call them like a package. Okay, we have the R sound and the L sound, and many, many languages struggle with the R and the L because there are variations in other languages. So, you have an R sound in your language, but it's different in English, you are going to keep making the R sound the way you do in your native language. So, we're going to be talking about the English, American English R sound, let me clarify that, the American English R sound, and how to make this sound. So, this sound gets very, very confusing because people often make a flat, the same thing with the L sound. And I could have added the T sound, but for time, I didn't, I just went with these mistakes that we're talking about today. So, what I hear people do is make something that sounds in American English like a D. So, instead of saying the word run, I might hear someone say done. And instead of the word, let's see, low, I might hear someone say don't. And the reason is, is because a flap is you're going to touch the roof of your mouth a little further back and it's going to be quick and fast and voiced. So, that to an American English listener will sound like a D sound, a fast D sound. So, to say the R sound, let's look at what people are doing. Again, the D I think is pretty common. I also hear people say L, because you know that you're supposed to make it a little less D like, but then the L comes out. So, I'll hear light. And for, I will also hear a W sound and I will hear white. And I will also hear a D and I will hear dead or red. Okay. So, your tongue does not touch the back of the top front teeth. We are not going to be touching the teeth at all. The tip of the tongue is either down or flip back. Okay. So, the back of the tongue is always up. So, my tongue tends to be like this. Some people will have the back of their tongue up and then the tip flip back and it'll be more like either is fine. Doesn't matter which one you do, just do not touch the teeth for that sound. Think about having square tense lips and that is really going to help you. And also make this sound long and strong. So, long and strong and you are going to be great. Okay. So, just go ahead and listen. Road. Read. River. Carry. Arrive. Diary. Ray carries his diary and reads it often. Okay. Road. Read. River. Carry. Arrive. Diary. Ray carries his diary and reads it often. Road. Read. River. Carry. Arrive. Diary. Ray carries his diary and reads it often. Okay. Very good. And our last sound for today is the L sound. And I hear a W or an R for this sound. So, I'll hear white or right instead of light. The tip of my tongue is going to touch my alveolar ridge. So, what does that mean? That means the tip of my tongue is touching that spot where the skin on the roof of my mouth and my teeth meet. You can make this with your tongue out of your mouth. I do that all of the time. But technically, it's most people make it on that alveolar ridge. Okay. Make this sound longer. Longer, longer, longer. That's going to help most of you out there. Okay. So, let's give it a try. I'm just going to have you listen and then I will have you repeat after me. Lead. Listen. Light. Calling. Delete. Really. Tell. File. Wall. Really listen to the leader. Okay. Repeat after me. Lead. Listen. Light. Calling. Delete. Really. Tell. File. Wall. Really listen to the leader. Lead. Listen. Light. Calling. Delete. Really. Tell. File. Wall. Really listen to the leader. Okay, everyone. Awesome job. That is it for today. Thanks again for being here, everyone. Take care, everybody.