module 7
Aspiration
Introduction
This section will focus on three sounds: /p/, /t/, and /k/, which are given special treatment in English pronunciation. The sounds in themselves do not sound very different from Dutch /p/, /t/, and /k/, but it is what we do extra to those sounds when they occur in particular positions that makes them worth learning about. If you walk through the exercises and watch the videos, you should be able to discover what this ‘doing extra’ means.
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Exercise 7.1
Adapted from: Hermans, (2018)
Listen to recording 7a. In the recording, the speaker pronounces a set of words, first with a Dutch accent, then with an English accent. Listen carefully if you can hear any difference between both ways of pronouncing the /p/, /t/, and /k/ either at the start of a word or at the start of a syllable (see highlights in the words below) and write down in your Pronunciation Portfolio what that difference is, according to you. Remember, it is about the sounds that you hear, not about the letters that occur in the spelling of the words. In the word cold, for example, you see a c, but you say a /k/.
The following words, in which /p/, /t/ and /k/ have been highlighted for you, are covered in the recording:
1. paper 7. Peter
2. talk 8. take
3. cold 9. copper
4. pepper 10. pretty
5. totter 11. platter
6. cocker 12. cocoon
Recording 7a