The sound is in English transcription. Consonant sounds and their approximate Russian analogues

Hello, potential school student English language Native English School!

Study of any foreign language impossible without studying its alphabet. But memorizing letters without understanding how they sound and are used in words is pointless. It is knowledge of phonetics that is one of the significant stages of language acquisition. This is especially important when a person is juststarts learning English and the correct pronunciation of sounds, letters and, accordingly, words is a basic skill.

English letters and their sounds

There are 26 letters in English:

6 vowels– a, e, i, o, u, y;

21 consonants– b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z.

“How so? - you say - twenty-one plus six equals twenty-seven! That's all true, but the point is that the letter "y" is both a vowel and a consonant. This is what the academicians who compiled and edited decided Oxford Dictionary– one of the most important dictionaries of the English language. Let's look at the English alphabet with transcription and pronunciation in Russian. Read!

First, to read sounds in English, you need to know how they are written. We can help you find out this in more detail at, but now let’s go back to the article and try to figure it out, and they are written in square brackets - this is called phonetic transcription. In English there are vowels (vowel) and consonants (consonant). Just like in Russian, vowels are pronounced with the mouth open, and consonants with the mouth closed.

English sounds pronunciation table

Some words may have different numbers of letters and sounds. For example, the word help has 4 letters and 4 sounds, but the word six has three letters but 4 sounds. Each letter has its own sound, but in English there are such concepts as digraphs– these are two letters denoting one sound: gh [g] – ghost (ghost), ph [f] – photo ['foutou] (photography), sh [ʃ] – shine [ʃaɪn] (shine), th [ð] or [θ] – think [θɪŋk] (think), сh – chess (chess) and diphthongs– passing vowel sounds from one to another: ea – bread (bread), ie – friend (friend), ai – again [əˈɡen] (again), au – autumn [ˈɔːtəm] (autumn), etc.

It is worth noting that digraphs and diphthongs are read differently depending on what part the words are in. For example, gh in the middle of a word is not pronounced: light (light), and at the end it sometimes sounds like “f”: enough [ı’nʌf] (enough); oo can be pronounced as long [ʋ:], “u” in Russian: moon (moon), short [ʋ]: good (good), as short [ʌ], similar to “a” in Russian: blood (blood ), but together with “r” it is completely different, like [ʋə]: poor (poor).

Instructions

Transcription is the recording of the sound of a letter or word in the form of a sequence of special phonetic symbols. With its help you can outside help correctly read an unfamiliar word. When starting to study English transcription, errors in correct reading may occur. However, with practice comes skill. When used, both in reading and writing, reading rules are very important. As in Russian, not everything is read as it is seen and vice versa.

The easiest way to write is to use a service. In addition to all kinds of dictionaries on the Internet, it is also possible to transcribe words. One example of such sites is http://lingorado.com/transcription/. In a small window, just write or copy. A separate piece, a phrase, or a couple of words will do. After the text has been entered, click on the “show transcription” button. The transcribed version will appear below.

The service also offers several additional options. For example, the ability to choose classic English (“British”) or “American” version. In addition, you can choose the option to display the transcription: only the transcription itself, along with the entered text at one level (on one line), first the text, and below the transcription. And you can also add the options “take into account the weak position” and “transcription in Russian letters”. For maximum convenience, the application with text transcription is available in the AppStore and Google Play. On the right side of the site there are relevant links.

The ability to transcribe and transcription will help when learning a language. And in such situations, a laptop with Internet access or a smartphone with an application will not always be at hand. This is how the English alphabet is transcribed: Aa [ei] - Bb [bi:] - Cc [si:] - Dd [di:] - Ee [i:] - Ff [ef] - Gg [dʒi:] - Hh [eitʃ] - Ii [ai] - Jj [dʒei] - Kk [kei] - Ll [el] - Mm [em] - Nn [en] - Oo [ou] - Pp [pi:] - Qq [kju:] - Rr [ a: ] - Ss [ es ] - Tt [ ti: ] - Uu [ ju: ] - Vv [ vi: ] - Ww [ `dʌbl ` ju: ] - Xx [ eks ] - Yy [ wai ] - Zz [ zed / ziː].

Vowels and consonants have their own characteristics. When a vowel sound is long, a colon is added to its designation. For example, the word "sheep" would be transcribed as follows: [ʃiːp]. A sound that is similar to the average between a and e is designated [æ] (apple - [ˈæpl]). The open sound a is indicated by a check mark [ʌ] (funny - ["fʌni]). The sound е also has its own transcription: [з] (girl -). Sounds that end in “й” are written together with “i”: ай - , oh - [ɔi], ey -. The sound “ou” is designated [əu], ie -, ue -, ea - [ɛə].

Everything is a little simpler. The Russian sound “sh” is indicated by this symbol: [ʃ]. A few more examples of non-standard sounds: “j” -, “ch” -, “zh” - [ʒ], “yu” -, “e” -, “e” -, “ya” -, “n” - [ŋ ] (usually at the end of a word, when “n” comes before “g” - “king”), the sound between s and f is [θ] (thin - [θin]), the sound between z and v is [ð] (brother -).

The peculiarity of the English language is that it has a lot of exceptions. Many people are used to learning languages according to rules, strict patterns, and even memorizing all the exceptions. However, when meeting and talking with a living native English speaker, you may be surprised, because even the pedantic British do not always follow all the rules, both grammatical and pronunciation. For them, there are established practices and patterns of speech. And about a hundred years ago, the Dutchman Gerard Nolst Trenité, 1870-1946 for a long time observed the English language and was horrified by the disorder in English readings. And I decided to collect such disgrace. In the end, there were 800 of them, and even in the poem, which he called “Chaos”. Even English teachers cannot always read it according to all the rules. Her poem is presented here: http://lingorado.com/english-reading-rules-chaos/.

Greetings, my dear readers.

Today we continue to talk about how to learn to read correctly, so the topic of today's article is transcription of English letters.

We have already introduced you to the concept and dealt with the pronunciation of sounds in English. Today we will figure out exactly how they are pronounced in various combinations.

I have a clear table for you. It contains the letters of the English alphabet with transcription, Russian analogue letters and my notes so that you can immediately get the correct pronunciation. I also added examples of words with the sounds being studied and their translation.

What else can you find on the blog:

with letters and transcription (you can study them online, download, print and work with them);
for children I have a complete one.

Well, shall we begin?

Features of English transcription:

it is always formatted with square brackets. I can’t say exactly where it came from, but I think it’s just worth taking it for granted;
to understand where the stress is, the transcription uses the sign [‘] before the stressed syllable;
It is important to remember that transcription is about the sound, not the spelling of words. Sometimes the spelling can be 90% different from what we pronounce;
to show that a sound is long we use a colon.

In general about English transcription I wrote - please!

Letters of the English alphabet and their transcription in Russian and English:

English letter	Transcription	Russian equivalent
Aa		Hey
Bb		Bi
Cc		Si
Dd		Di
Ee		AND
Ff	[ɛf]	Eph
Gg		Gee
Hh		H.
II		Ay
Jj		Jay
Kk		Kay
Ll	[ɛl]	Al
mm	[ɛm]	Em
Nn	[ɛn]	En
Oo	[əʊ]	Oh
Pp		Pi
Qq		Q
Rr	[ɑː] or [ɑɹ]	A or Ar
Ss	[ɛs]	Es
Tt		Tee
Uu		Yu
Vv		V
Ww	[ˈdʌb(ə)l juː]	Double
Xx	[ɛks]	Ex
Yy		Wye
Zz	,	Zed, zee

But do you know what is the most interesting thing about English?

If combined different letters, they are pronounced differently!

That's why I prepared for you

Examples of English letter combinations in Russian and English:

Combination	Transcription	How to pronounce	Example
ee	/i:/	AND	bee - bee
ea	/ ı:/	AND	tea - tea
oo	/u/	U	cook - to cook
th	/ ð / / Ѳ /	Z, S (interdental)	thumb - finger
sh	/ ʃ /	Sh	shout - shout
ch	/tʃ/	H	chair - chair
ph	/f/	F	phone - phone
ck	/k/	TO	snack - snack
ng	/ Ƞ /	Ng	song - song
wh	/w/	Ua	why - why
wr	/r/	R	write - write
qu	/kw/	Kua	queen - queen
igh	/aı/	Ay	high - high
all	/Ɔ:l/	Ol	tall - tall
ai	/eı/	Hey	Spain - Spain
ay	/eı/	Hey	May - May
oi	/oı/	Oh	point - point
oh	/oı/	Oh	toy - toy
ow	/oƱ/	Oh	grow - grow
ou	/aƱ/	Ay	out - outside
ew	/ju:/	Yu	knew - knew
aw	/ Ɔ: /	Ooo	draw - draw
ee+r	/ ıə /	Eeyore	engineer - engineer
ou+r	/aƱə/	Aue	our - ours
oo+r	/ Ɔ: /	Ooo	door - door
wo+r	/ ɜ: /	Y/O	work - work
ai+r	/eə/	Ea	chair - chair
oa+r	/ Ɔ: /	Ooh	roar - scream
might	/Ʊd/	Oud	could - could
ound	/aƱnd/	Aund	round - round
eigh	/eı/	Hey	eight - eight
-y	/ ı /	AND	tiny - tiny
au	/ Ɔ: /	Oo	Paul - Paul
gh	/f/	F	laugh - laugh
aught	/Ɔ:t/	From	taught - taught

I know this table seems huge right now. Surely you think that remembering all this is unrealistic. I'll tell you this: at a certain point, when you have enough, you won't even pay attention to these combinations. Your brain will learn to quickly remember how exactly these letters sound. Moreover, even when you come across a word that is completely unfamiliar to you, you will be able to read it correctly. The only question is the amount of practice on your part.

How to remember combinations of letters?

Use cards. Visual perception is better developed in most people.
Read. Pay attention to combinations of letters when or just texts.
Don't get hung up. It is not necessary to immediately memorize these combinations and only then move directly to English. Learn as you go!
Buy paper or download a good one e-book in order to quickly learn to recognize combinations and pronounce them correctly. Even if you, an adult, need it, don’t hesitate to take books for children - everything there is explained in detail and is not without interest.
Take the course « English from scratch» . This will make your path easier.

That's all, my dears. I hope you found it useful and understandable. I provide even more similar materials in the blog newsletter - subscribe and receive a dose of useful information regularly.

At the initial stage of learning English, you inevitably have to deal with differences between your native language and a foreign language. Reading in English for beginners, children and adults, is usually one of the first stages in learning. And the first such differences between Russian and English appear as soon as you begin to learn to read English. You are faced with transcription and reading rules of the English language. These two concepts are related, since with the help of transcription we can write down and read the sounds that are conveyed by vowels and consonants in various combinations. But the reading rules explain exactly how letters are pronounced in different environments.

There are quite a lot of reading rules in English, and they concern both vowels and consonants. In addition, a huge number of words are not read according to the rules, that is, they are exceptions. Therefore, it begins to seem that it is extremely difficult to learn all this. In fact, the rules of reading need to be learned, but there is no need to learn them by heart. After doing several exercises on reading rules, you will already know how exactly the same type of words is read. As you learn, as you read and listen to a variety of educational materials, spelling, pronunciation and meaning of new words will be remembered as a whole.

Features of English pronunciation

Reading in English for beginners at first presents some difficulties due to the peculiarities of pronunciation - words are often pronounced differently from how they are written. Linguists even have a saying: “We write Manchester, we pronounce Liverpool.” This situation is due to the fact that historically there were, and still are, many dialects in the English language in which the same letters and combinations of letters were read differently, which over time became entrenched in official English. An example is the letter combination ough. The words though, through, thought differ in only one letter, and the letter combination ough is read differently in all words.

The role of transcription in teaching reading in English

So, as we have already said, in addition to numerous rules for reading in English, difficulties arise when mastering the transcription of the English language. Transcription is the recording of speech sounds using special symbols. You should not avoid it, as it is the most best assistant in learning a language, which, firstly, will save you time when learning new words, and secondly, will help you avoid mistakes in pronunciation. After all, when you write out or memorize new words, you definitely need to know how to read them correctly. There are two options on how to do this. The first is to listen to it in some online resource, and the second is to look at the transcription.

Now in some tutorials, as well as on training sites, you can find “English transcription in Russian”. It is believed that writing an English word in Russian letters is much easier than learning some incomprehensible phonetic symbols. In fact, this is a misconception. English phonetics differs from Russian so much that Russian letters can only approximately convey pronunciation English words, and mostly the simplest ones, reading which even without this kind of “transcription” is not particularly difficult. Some English sounds simply does not exist in the Russian language, and the correct pronunciation of seemingly similar English and Russian sounds may have certain differences.

Therefore, we recommend that you take the time to learn the transcription symbols and read the sounds. This is one of basic knowledge when mastering the rules of reading English for beginners. Knowledge of transcription will serve you faithfully at all stages of your training.

Let's look at the rules of reading English

There are different classifications of rules for reading consonants and vowels in English. For vowel letters, as a rule, 4 types of syllables are distinguished. These are 4 types of environments in which a vowel may find itself, and which affect its pronunciation. Some textbooks consider only the first two syllable types - open and closed, but consider whether the letter r is involved in these syllable types - as it affects the reading of vowels. Consonants in different combinations can also be read differently. It must be said that the number of exceptions and reading options for the same letter combinations in in different words give reason to consider the reading rules rather as generalized recommendations that should be studied before you start reading.

To familiarize yourself with the rules of reading in English, we suggest that you take as a basis the tables with options for reading letters, which are given in our textbook for children “English Language. Grades 1-4 in diagrams and tables” N. Vakulenko. These English reading rules for children cover almost everything possible options reading vowels and consonants in English. But before we move directly to the tables, let’s look at two more concepts that you will definitely come across when getting acquainted with the rules of reading. This open And closed syllable.

The syllable is called open, When

ends with a vowel and is the last of the word
a vowel is followed by a consonant and then a vowel again
a vowel is again followed by another vowel

Examples of words with an open syllable type (You can listen with sound):

age, blue, bye, fly, go

The syllable is called closed, When

ends with a consonant and is the last of the word
a vowel is followed by several consonants

Examples of words with closed type syllable:

bed, big, box, hungry, stand

So, let’s formulate the rules for reading English for beginners: tables for reading vowels and consonants.

Vowel Reading Charts

Consonant Reading Tables

Intonation in English

Even if a student learns all the basic grammatical rules and 10-12 thousand lexemes, this will not make him close to the native speaker, because he also needs to delve into the phonemic structure of the language, in particular, to learn in which cases to use which type of intonation.

There are two main types - ascending and descending.

The first is used in request sentences, when addressing a person, when announcing a list (in this case, the intonation goes up on each of the words except the last), after adverbs and introductory words at the beginning of a phrase, at the beginning alternative question, in a dividing question.

The second type of intonation, lowering the tone, is relevant in statements when giving orders. It can be found in exclamations and special questions.

How to train this skill?

Listen to how native speakers speak, how this or that word, sound, phrase is read in audiobooks.
Watch videos on this topic. Moreover, English should be the narrator’s first and main language.
Use educational materials and apply the acquired knowledge in practice. Read aloud in English, after listening to the recording, talk at least several times a week.
Record your speech and do a comparative analysis with the native language.

Accent in English

If the accent is incorrectly placed in certain letter combinations, it will be difficult for a native English speaker to understand you. However, it is pointless to memorize the stress for each word, since there is a certain systematicity in this aspect.

Most words have stress on the first syllable. But there are those who obey a different rule. For example, the suffix formations -tion, -cian and -cial require an accent in front of them (inform A tion, opt i cian). The suffixes -(g)nomy and -logy (ge) also behave O logy, ec O nomy).

With prefixes it’s even simpler - they are skipped and remain unaccented. This works with the prefixes in-, en-, con-, com-, re-, de-, ex-, etc.: exch A nge, enc O mpass.

Negative prefixes (non-, un-, in-, ir-, not-) also fall under this rule: un U sual, irr E levant

There are a number of words that change the stressed syllable type in English to unstressed, depending on the meaning:

to object - object; O bject - object;
to press E nt - to give; pr E sent - gift, present moment.

Having learned the basic provisions that regulate stress and with a little practice, you can easily reach a high language level.

How to learn reading rules. Online exercises

As we said earlier, there is no need to memorize the rules of reading. You just need to use them. To begin, go through several exercises on reading rules, reading aloud the same type of words in a row. This will help reinforce reading rules and develop pronunciation skills. For additional control, you can take exercises with audio accompaniment. In fact, the rules of reading are practiced automatically by themselves, since by regularly studying English, you listen, read, write - that is, practice for practicing the rules of reading is quite enough.

Choose words that have similar vowel sounds

Choose words that have the same consonant sounds

Make up an English tongue twister from the words

You can apply the reading rules in practice on our website. By going through unique exercises using the Lim English method, you will be able to master not only reading, but also writing English words, as well as learn basic grammatical rules and continue learning further.

When you start learning English, the first thing you encounter is English alphabet (alphabet |ˈalfəbɛt |). Writing English letters is not something completely new even at the very initial stage of learning, because any modern man encounters English letters on computer and telephone keyboards every day. And English words are found at every step: in advertising, on the labels of various products, in store windows.

But even though the letters seem familiar, their correct pronunciation in English is sometimes difficult even for those who speak English quite well. Everyone is familiar with the situation when you need to spell an English word - for example, dictate an address email or the name of the site. This is where the wonderful names begin - i - “like a stick with a dot”, s - “like a dollar”, q - “where is the Russian th”.

English alphabet with pronunciation in Russian, transcription and voice acting

The English alphabet with Russian pronunciation is intended only for beginners. In the future, when you become familiar with the rules of reading English and learn new words, you will need to study transcription. It is used in all dictionaries, and if you know it, it will once and for all remove the problem of correct pronunciation of new words for you. We advise you to compare the transcription icons in square brackets with the Russian equivalent at this stage. Perhaps, from these short examples, you will remember some of the relationships between English and Russian sounds.

Below is a table showing the English alphabet with transcription and Russian pronunciation.

← Move the table to the left to view in full

Letter	Transcription	Russian pronunciation	Listen	Add. information

If you want to listen to the entire alphabet, please!

English alphabet cards

Cards of the English alphabet are very effective in learning it. Bright and large letters will be easier to remember. See for yourself:

Features of some letters of the English alphabet.

In the English alphabet 26 letters: 20 consonants and 6 vowels.

The vowels are A, E, I, O, U, Y.

There are several letters in the English language that we want to pay attention to special attention, since they have certain features that need to be taken into account when learning the alphabet.

The letter Y in English can be read as a vowel or as a consonant. For example, in the word “yes” it is a consonant sound [j], and in the word “many” it is a vowel sound [i] (and).
Consonant letters in words, as a rule, convey only one sound. The letter X is an exception. It is transmitted by two sounds at once - [ks] (ks).
The letter Z in the alphabet is read differently in the British and American versions (as you probably already noticed in the table). The British version is (zed), the American version is (zi).
The pronunciation of the letter R is also different. The British version is (a), the American version is (ar).

To make sure you pronounce it correctly english letters, we recommend not only looking at them and reading them (using transcription or Russian version), but also listening. To do this, we advise you to find and listen to ABC-song. This song is usually used when teaching children the alphabet, but it can also be useful for adults. ABC song is very popular in teaching and comes in various variations. If you sing it with the announcer several times, you can not only check the correct pronunciation of the letters, but also easily remember the alphabet along with the melody.

A few words about spelling

So, we have learned the English alphabet. We know how to pronounce English letters individually. But moving on to the reading rules, you will immediately see that many letters in different combinations are read completely differently. A reasonable question arises - as the cat Matroskin would say - what is the benefit of memorizing the alphabet? In fact, there are practical benefits.

The point here is not the ability to recite the alphabet from beginning to end, but the ability to easily spell any English word. This skill is necessary when you need to take dictation english names. If you need English for work, this skill can be very useful, since English names, even those that sound the same, can be written in several ways. For example, Ashley or Ashlee, Mila and Milla, not to mention last names. Therefore, for the British and Americans themselves, it is considered absolutely natural to ask to spell a name if you need to write it down (spell it) - hence the word spelling (spelling), which you can see in various tutorials.

Online exercises for learning the alphabet

Select the letter that goes

Complete the letter with which the word begins.

Complete the letter that ends the word.

Decipher the code and write down the secret message in letters. The number corresponds to the order of the letters in the alphabet.

Well, the final, interactive exercise “Dictation”, you can follow this link.

You can apply the acquired knowledge in practice with the help. With the help of unique exercises, even at the most basic level, you will be able to master not only reading, but also writing English words, as well as learn basic grammatical rules and continue learning further.