How do you pronounce ‘fifTEEN’ or ‘FIFteen’ (15)?
Prominence can move to the secondary stressed syllable…
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Friday, 14 November 2025
Stress Shift
Sunday, 9 November 2025
The Waltz
Hello! We meet to step in the world of waltz today.
We’ll explore dance vocabulary and practise question and answer
tones —let’s hit the floor together!
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Sunday, 2 November 2025
Intonation in Yes-No Questions
I.
One of the most significant changes in intonation since RP is in yes-no questions, i.e. questions which can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. By far the most common way of asking yes-no questions was with the pattern they called the downstepped Low Rise or ‘Low Bounce’. This pattern can certainly be heard today, but its meaning is more marked and less neutral than it was in RP. It may show considerable surprise; or it may signal that the speaker is talking ‘down’ to the hearer. Adults might use it when asking small children a question.
Is that chocolate milkshake?
Do you like living in Paris?
II.
In SSB today, a more neutral and common way of asking yes-no questions is with a contour which begins, like the Low Bounce, but it ends in the Fall-Rise nuclear tone rather than the Low Rise. This gives us a more straightforwardly polite yes-no question, suitable for any addressee.
Can you come over now?
In Brief, it was very common in RP to ask yes-no questions with the downstepped Low Rise, but this can now sound old-fashioned or even patronising. So, use the Fall-Rise instead.
Sunday, 26 October 2025
Tricky Trio
Three of the most common English words which end in vowels are the preposition ‘to’ and the articles ‘the’ and ‘a’.
1.
These three words generally have schwa /ə/ before consonants.
a dress əˈdrɛs
to dress təˈdrɛs
the dress ðəˈdrɛs
2a.
Before vowels, their forms alter: the indefinite article acquires /n/, while ‘to’ and ‘the’ typically change their vowels, becoming /tuː/ (/tʉw/) and /ðiː/ (/ðɪj/).
an address ənəˈdrɛs
to address tʉwəˈdrɛs
the address ðɪjəˈdrɛs
2b.
But many younger speakers of SSB now use schwa before vowels as well as consonants, but with hard attack before a vowel. (This pattern is more established in America, and perhaps in Scotland, than in SSB. This is also typical for German learners of English).
to address tə[ʔ]əˈdrɛs
the address ðə[ʔ]əˈdrɛs or ðɪj[ʔ]əˈdrɛ
Note that this creates a potential ambiguity in SSB between the definite article ‘the’ pronounced with hard attack before a vowel and the conjunction ‘that’ pronounced weakly with glottal replacement of the final /t/.
‘She said [ðəʔ]others will be there’.
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Saturday, 11 October 2025
Reading skill of making constant prediction
What skills do we need for reading? 📖 Do we need vocabulary or grammar❓
The answer may surprise you — it’s no, not exactly. Of course, vocabulary and grammar help us understand what we read, but the key skill that makes reading easier and more effective is MAKING PREDICTIONS.
Watch my video to learn more.
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Sunday, 5 October 2025
Weak Vowel Merger
Weak Vowel Merger
There’s a gradual tendency, in an increasing number of words, for weak KIT ([ɪ]) to be interchangeable with, or replaced by, schwa [ə].
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Monday, 29 September 2025
RP Strengthening
A number of pronunciation changes since RP can be seen asstrengthenings. RP used to have a somewhat more lax and smooth
manner of production than contemporary speech...
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