Pronounce English Accurately

Video Text

Now we're really moving to the back of the mouth, to the back consonants, which cannot be seen in the mirror, or the camera.

/k/ and /g/ are both stops – the air is fully blocked and then released.

And they are both 'velar' – the back of the tongue is raised until it forms closure against the soft palate, or 'velum'.

Here it is in the diagram.

[kə - kə - kə]

/k/ is voiceless,: [kə - kə - kə]

A voiceless velar plosive.

/g/ is voiced: [gə - gə - gə]

A voiceled velar plosive.

/k/ is most typically spelt with 'k' or 'ck', as in 'kick'.

The letter 'c' followed by 'a', 'o', or 'u' or any consonant is a so-called 'hard' /k/ sound, as in 'cart', 'cool', 'cup' and 'crash'.

As we saw earlier with the /s/ sound, the letter 'c' followed by the letters 'e', 'i' or 'y' is a 'soft' /s/ sound, as in 'cell', 'city' and 'cylinder', and 'sce-', sci-' and 'scy-' are all pronounced /s/.

Another common spelling is 'que' at the end of a word, as in 'unique', 'technique', 'opaque' and 'picturesque'.

More unusual, as we saw earlier, is the 'qu' in 'quay'.

At the end of words 'qu' is always /k/.

In the middle of words 'qu' may be /kw/, as in 'banquet', but often it's not. It's often /k/ as in 'racquet' and 'Jacqueline'.

Examples of /k/ sound in initial position are:

kettle

cattle

create

kill

crab

Examples of /k/ in medial position include:

taken

bacon

trekked – one of very few words with double kk instead of the usual ck

hacked

biking

vacation

looking

And in final position:

duck

bike

Mike and mic – short for microphone

neck

hook.

There are a lot of words, which are mainly of Greek origin, spelt 'ch' which are pronounced /k/:

chasm

chaos and chaotic

stomach-ache

chemical, chemistry

cholera

scheme

orchid

and many more. Here's a list: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_English_words_with_"ch"_pronounced_as_/k/

As we have seen, 'schedule' in most commonly pronounced with initial /ʃ-/ in British English, /sk-/ in American English, but with a tendency towards /sk-/ among younger speakers.

'Schism' was traditionally pronounced /ˈsɪz.əm/ but this has now been largely displaced in favour of /ˈskɪz.əm/.

/g/

As with 'soft' and 'hard' c, the letter 'g' is in general a 'soft' /dʒ/ before the letters 'e', 'i' and 'y', and a 'hard' /g/ elsewhere.

But this is very much in general, because a lot of very ordinary words, like 'get', break the rule.

Examples of an unexpected 'hard' /g/ before the letters 'e' or 'i' include:

'get'

'give' and 'gift'

'together'

'tiger'

'gecko'

'gibbon'.

With expected /dʒ/ we have 'gibberish', 'giblets' and 'gigolo', so there's nothing at all in the spelling to tell you if it's /g/ or /dʒ/. You have to use the IPA and look it up if you're in doubt.

'Ghost', 'ghoul', 'ghastly', 'gherkin', and 'ghyll', a variant spelling of 'gill', a ravine or deep valley, all have a silent letter 'h' and are pronounced /g/.

Practice sentences with /k/ and /g/:

Cacophonous crows cawed cravenly calling their cowardly kids.

Could you quickly come and get your car out of my garage.

Gertrude, the ghastly girl, gave all her golden guillemots to Gale.

A glamorous girl in a gleaming green gown glanced across at Gordon. Gordon groaned.