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This website was created to help people improve their American English pronunciation. At the core is a series of videos explaining in detail how each sound is created, as well as a blog.
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Though I highly recommend learning via video :), sometimes a book is a nice resource to have. I especially like this one:
Idiom: 'Spill the Beans'
American English Pronunciation :: Idiom: Spill the Beans
Video Text:
Today I'm going to go over the pronunciation for the idiom to spill the beans. This is what you say when someone reveals something that was supposed to be kept secret. For example, my mother's birthday party was supposed to be a surprise, but my younger brother spilled the beans, meaning, he accidentally told her about it.
Spill begins with the S consonant sound, ss pp, followed by the P sound. Both are unvoiced. Then the 'ih' as in 'sit' vowel sound [
], spi-, spi-ll. The dark L sound where the tongue moves up into position, ihll, spill. The begins with the voiced TH sound [
], th, th, tongue comes through the teeth to make that. The, with the schwa sound [
]. Spill the beans - begins with the voiced consonant sound, bb, followed by the 'ee' as in 'she' vowel sound [
]. Bea-, bea-nn. Tongue moves up into position for the N, where the front part of the tongue touches the roof of the mouth, bean, nn, zz. And finally, the Z voiced consonant sound. Beans, beans, spill the beans. Spill and beans are both the stressed words in this phrase. Spill the beans.
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... I think it is a GREAT resource for studying pronunciation. You can slow down videos without the pitch changing, you can loop sections, you can look up words. It's an amazing resource, and I've enjoyed playing around with it.
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