I think the terms you are looking for are called 'vowel length' and 'vowel duration'. As it has been mentioned, vowels before fortis sounds tend to be shorter because the fortis sound needs more power, that is, it is aspirated.

I have newly joined this forum, just to give a reply to you. I know what you were expressing, and in fact a voiced consonant always sounds lower pitch than the vowels (also unv. consonant, unv. consonant always seems to have a high pitch though it

Hi, amylopez, Thanks for joining us. Welcome to English Forums! As far as I know, there's no vowel sound in Spanish resembling our "short i." So your pronunciation of "leave" is probably the one that's correct (like the

I'm going to pass on the "should" question. My instinct tells me it could be ambiguous, because "should" has several uses. If you use "should" in the sense of "ought to," then it would be redundant.

I was hoping to find some pictures on the net showing how the shapes of the mouth differ when pronunciating different vowels and consonants, but I found none. Does anybody know where I can find some pics? thanks.

I would strongly disagreee with Hoa Thai's assertion that French is relatively easy to learn and that is it spelled as it is sounded. It most certainly is not. There are loads of homophones in the language. For instance the 'ay' sound

I think you're right on, Kooyeen. And thanks for the reply. I am a stickler in my pronunciation classes that students learn to say the -s (and -ed) endings correctly. Even though I do this, I know that native English speaking Americans rarely

Frequently listen to English spoken by native speakers and repeat them. Watch English movies, listen to music, audio clips, BBC news and presentations. Control your rate of speech to get the correct intonation and rhythm of English. Use your

I am glad we agree about the sound /w/. That leaves us with the letter <w>. Letters of the alphabet must not be confused with sounds. By convention and for convenience, letters that represent vowel sounds are called vowels and letters that

. You have a problem, but I can suggest little more than practice and concentration; I presume you have a tutor or teacher or acquaintance who can listen to and advise you. I hadn't noticed that Chinese students have much trouble with vowel