PLOSIVE STORY /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract.

• Use the consonant chart on the right to hear and repeat each one of these plosive consonant phonemes /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ in isolation as many times as you need to. To help you produce the sounds correctly, place a sheet of paper in front of you, you will probably notice that the paper moves (if you do it properly) as the air streem is released in the manner of a mini-explosion. Keep trying until the paper moves, it should move more with the voiceless consonants /p/ /t/ /k/ than with the voiced equivalents /b/ /d/ /g/.
  

• You can now listen to the song The story composed by Brandi Carlile.Pay special attention to the pronunciation of plosive consonants. Once you have finished listening, you can do the matching activity just underneath the video. If you want to see the lyrics as you listen, click on this link: version with the lyrics superimposed on the video.

• Do this matching puzzle activity for more practice of -ed form.
• For more listening practice on pronunciation of -ed  regular past verbs, click here.

PAST OR PRESENT? /s/, /d/ or /t/? RUN BABY RUN

Here's a song, Run Baby Run, by Sheryl Crow to  help you identify present and past verb forms from the pronunciation of final consonants /s/,  /z/,   /d/  or  /t/.  Also to homage a good friend.

Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the correct verb form, present or  past, according to what you hear. Click first on the clue, the infinitive of the verb written phonetically.


To practice with -ed form of regular past verbs, click here

GLOTTAL STOP /ʔ/ AND LITTLEST THINGS

(By Rosa Maté Ibáñez and Ana López Pozo)

It's the little things that make the difference.


In this song, Littlest Things by Lilly Allen (made popular by the viral power of the net), you can learn to identify and practice glottal stop, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʔ/. This is produced by obstructing the airflow in the vocal tract. In certain positions  it may be used as an allophone of the phoneme / t/; This is known as glottalling or glottal replacement of 't'. See tutorial on glottal stop .
  
T Glottalisation is one of the features of Cockney English. See Cockney rhyming slang. The term Cockney has both geographical and linguistic associations. Geographically and culturally, it often refers to working class Londoners, particularly those in the East End. Linguistically, it refers to the form of English spoken by this group. It used to be looked down on by some people but today it is becoming more common and accepted. Due to the influence of  television series and some presenters, Cokney has spread. This has led to the adoption of a mock Cockney (Mockney) accent by some celebrities  looking for street credibility.

• Listen to the song and do the gap-fill exercise while listening. Click on the clue button to get a phonetic transcription of the missing words. The clues in the gap-fill exercise for this song, Littlest Things, focus on the t glottlalisation. 

• Can you find any more words containing glottal stop in the song apart from the gapped ones?