By Consonants, American English

I am very talented with accents, but I have had to accept the fact that I am getting older and the ability to imitate an accent is diminishing. I am a native speaker of standard mid-western American English (considered to be accent free in the US). I speak Spanish with several regional accents,...

Yes, Yankee's comments above pretty much speak for British English usage, as well as for American English. The initial u in the 'consonant' examples given by Yankee is invariably pronounced as yoo.As for British usage of 'An historic(al)', you will still occasionally find it,...

Hi,yes, I remember you asked about him. I'm not an expert at all, but I can tell you my opinion, as a learner.I agree it's a good accent for those who are interested in British English. I don't find any annoying features in his accent (=features I don't like). It doesn't...

In American English the 's' in sides sounds like /z/ too.Here are the rules for pronouncing the final 's' in American English.1. ‘es’ is pronounced as /ez/ after these sibilant sounds/s/ businesses, buses /z/ freezes, causes /sh/ bushes,...

James- I think the differences all could be accounted for by dialect. In American English, I have been taught that the only syllabic consonants are l and n, but not m. all of the words above such as london and gordon could be pronounced with a syllabic consonant. The determinant for any sc is...

Yes, there are regional variations in American English. Do you know which accent is chosen by MW as the reference in the pronunciation keys. Is it General American?My problem is that, as I have mentioned before, they are indeed denoted differently in British English. The first one is a simple...

Thanks again for your patience in explaining that to me. I think I know what you are talking about. This also happens for the length of vowels before voiceless consonants vs voiced consonants, e.g. bat vs bad. Yes, you are right, the vowel quality is often affected by the following...

No.But in African American English sometimes, or often, there are similar reduction, for example TEST ---> TESS ... HAND ---> HANWhat you are hearing is probably the fact that consonants are not fully pronounced in some cases. For example the C in FACT is not pronounced like the C in COP....

I've noticed that in some TV programs some final consonant clusters are reduced. Here are a few examples that I've noticed:facts -> faxgifts -> gifs tests -> tesstasks -> tass asked -> ass-tkicked -> kit Is it acceptable to make these kind of reductions in American English?

It's a symbol for phonetic transcriptions and it represent a sound, not a letter. It's not a matter of pronouncing it differently, but a matter of using it or not. Americans use that sound in "bath" for example, but some people in the UK don't. So Americans say /bæθ/, and...