Online English Pronunciation With Laura

Haha true ...!

So interesting - I could spend hours looking at this!

Who ever said English pronunciation was going to be easy..? 😅

I remember in one of my first phonetics lectures being taught that the movements of the mouth when speaking are more complex and intricate than the hand movements of a concert pianist. And most people totally master it before the age of about 3.. Amazing!

Most of the time, double consonants in English spelling are just pronounced as one short consonant, for example the 'p' sounds the words 'happy' and 'copy' are about the same. Compare the double 'n' sounds in 'dinner' and 'unnatural' though - notice how the second one is longer? Thats because it's a geminate, or "twin" consonant. This blog post explains ...

Christmas is one week today!
Have you ever watched the Queen's Christmas day speech? Ever noticed she's sounding a bit more common these days..?
'Phoneticians watched the Christmas broadcasts from the past 60 years and discovered the Queen appears to have changed her pronunciation of certain words. For example, the way she says “family” was phonetically more like “fem-e-leh” in 1957, but it now sounds more like “fam-e-lee”. Similarly, the way she pronounces the word “lost” h...as changed from “lawst” to “lost”.'
'hæpi 'krɪsməs !
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Interesting discussion with a student this evening about the pronunciation of words like 'past' - Do you pronounce it so it rhymes with 'part' or 'pat'?
This article highlights some of the variations in pronunciation and vocabulary in different areas of the UK and Ireland, in the past and the present. The most surprising one for me was the history of the word 'splinter'...

Quiz time! Test your knowledge of London place names and their strange pronunciations with this two-minute quiz...

A quick video to introduce myself and tell you a bit about my classes.

Monday Quiz time! Test your pronunciation knowledge with this fun quiz about English vowels.

After four years of hard work, I graduated today from City, University of London with a first class degree in Speech and Language Therapy!! Excited to see what the future has in store for me as a qualified speech therapist 😊..

Londoners! Are you getting ready to proTEST against Trump tomorrow? Do you obJECT to his REcord on climate change, or do you think he is right to reJECT the scientific REsearch?
Did you know that many noun-verb pairs which are spelt the same are stressed differently? 2-syllable nouns are usually stressed on the first syllable, and verbs on the second. Here are some examples:

COME ON ENGLAND!!! ⚽🏆 Who's excited for today's match?

Do you know how the vocal cords work to produce your voice? This is a great video showing four singers' vocal cords in action while singing, viewed from above using a nasendoscope (a camera on a flexible stick which is inserted via the nose)