by Barry Pennock-Speck - ict4u2learn

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Consonants of General American English

 

General American is rhotic, that is, the /r/ is pronounced after vowels. See START, NORTH, FORCE and LETTER in the vowel chart. Listen to the examples of General American such as park, car, war, normal, yours, either, faster.

This means that there is no centering diphthong in near /nɪr/, square //skwɛːr/ or cure /kjʊr/. Compare this with RP /nɪə/, /skweə/ and /pjʊə/. Listen to there, where.

The phoneme /t/ has a flap pronunciation [ɾ] between vowels. So writer has the following pronunciation: /ˈrɑɪɾɚ/.

The consonants /n, d and j/ before -u and -ew , RP are followed by /j/. Let's see a comparison:

Example

Am.E

RP

Example

Am.E

RP

tune

tuːn

tjuːn

duke

duːk

djuːk

new

nuː

njuː

dune

duːn

djuːn