General preface

This pronunciation practice book is rather a complete reference to 49 English phonemes. It is intended for anyone who needs simple and direct guidance about the mechanism of producing any English vowel or consonant. The practice book is designed to answer the questions about a concrete realization of a certain phoneme in all its positional and combinatorial manifestations. It is widely believed that only conscious approach to the study of phonemes and their allophones may result in perfect pronunciation of learners.

Clear and simple recommendations are given, highlighting correct and acceptable Standard British English.

They also help the learners to have a clear notion about the place of every phoneme in a special sound system of English, a corresponding definition of it and the realization of a certain "phonemic family” /D.Jones/.

The material provided in this book is of vital importance to those teachers of English, who are the native speakers of Russian. The introductory part of this practice book should be the part a student might want to look at first. The attention is consistently paid to some particular differences between English and Russian pronouncing mechanisms, articulatory basis, functioning of some organs of speech and the systems of sounds on the whole.

The second unit of this practice book comprises not only definitions and representations of all allophonic distributions but also some concrete exercises based on the principles, elaborated by the scholars of St. Petersburg School of Phonology: not a single phoneme can be practised in the following exercise if it has not yet been introduced in the previous one.

The Aids are provided with four appendices inside the back cover of it:

A. Glossary to “General Preface” and “Introductory Notes”.

2. B. Glossary to “Drills”.

C. Allophonic Marks.

D. Test assignments.

The Practice Book is provided with the disc, containing some special exercises and instructions to them. There are two copies of the material recorded: the first one which is recorded by the teacher of phonetics, in a somewhat exaggerated manner, is intended for the elementary stage of studying phonetics; the second copy is meant for more advanced learners.

The Introductory Phonetic Course is an integral part of the general practical course of the language studied, resulting in the training of highly qualified teachers of English.

Preface to the Phonetic Information

The representation of pronunciation in the Aids differs somewhat from that given in the majority of English dictionaries used by non-native learners of English. The length marks associated with certain vowels are not used here as it was in the tradition of my teachers of Phonetics from Saint Petersburg School of Phonology. The author of this practice book considers it to be redundant to use these marks as they hinder the distinguishing quantitative characteristics of the allophones of English vowels. We have had the experience of more than twenty years practice of teaching our students to use phonetic symbols of English tense vowels without the length marks and have come to good results.