In these podcasts, I will provide some guidance to English vowel pronunciation and sentence speaking patterns.  These are for B1 to C1 students who want to be better understood or take the IELTS.

Accelerate your English Pronunciation with Ralph

These podcasts are for anyone who is preparing for the IELTS.
There will be a variety of lengths of podcasts featuring advice for some aspect of the Speaking test. 

Accelerate Your IELTS Speaking with Ralph

The collected adventures of a traveling teacher who encounters various cultural differences.
The first story "Time" will be posted in four parts.

Teacher who came in from the Cold

  In some languages, the pronunciation of the letters remains constant, never changing or change very little.  Czech and Spanish are two examples.  English isn't like this.  We have long vowels short vowels and combinations of vowels.  Sometimes the pronunciation seems to change without reason.  Moreover, the speling rarely helps. Consider these three words:  food, blue, and blew - The vowel sounds are all the same, go figure.Has anybody ever looked at you after listening and asked, 'What?'  Last week, my student said through and I heard throw and was totally lost.
                    Sound 1	/oooo/		Sound 2     /ow/

			Through 		 	Throw

			Two				Tow
		
			Blue				Blow

			View				Vote

			New				Know

			Sue				        So

			Clue				Clone

			Rude				Road


Through / Throw

Bare Naked Ladies are a Toronto, Canada rock group popular in the late 1990s and the early part of the new century.  In episode 1, I commented that food, blue, and blew all had the same vowel sound.  Indeed, bare (meaning naked or basic) and bear (the animal) are pronounced the same. In this episode, I am going to guide you through (not throw) the E ear and A air sounds.
Here are the lists of the words in this lesson.  Notice that the spelling of the vowel sound is not consistent.
                                                 Sound 1                                             Sound 2
                                                      ear                                                      air
                                                      beer                                                    bear / bare
                                                      pier                                                      pear
                                                      hear                                                     hair
                                                      tear                                                      tear
                                                      cheers                                                 chairs             


                                     