Pronuncian Lessons
Linking Consonants and Vowels in American English Pronunciation
Consonants and vowels comprise the two largest categories of sounds in English. Vowels are the sounds created by the letters a, e, i, o, and u. The letters w and y also commonly create vowel sounds, and any word that ends in the letters w or y ends in a vowel sound.
Linking consonants and vowels
Blending consonants with vowels is one of the easiest sorts of links for non-native speakers. To link a consonant sound to a vowel sound, the consonant sound is shared by both words. It sounds like the consonant is both the last sound of the first word and as the first sound of the following word.
Listen to the phrases wake up and mice eat. Notice that there is no pause between the words. In fact, the middle consonant sound is shared so perfectly with both the first and the second words, that we cannot hear (from this limited context) a difference between the following phrases.
wake_up and way_cup
mice_eat and my_seat
Wake_cup and way_cup sound exactly the same when properly linked. (Although this may seem ambiguous, native speakers are used to differentiating based on context.) The k sound links the words in the same way, regardless if the k sound is the last sound of the first word, or the first sound of the second word.
Mice_eat and my_seat are also pronounced identically because the consonant sound (the s sound) is shared equally between both words in both phrases.
Listen to this dialog between Squid and Wilma. Notice the consonant/vowel links.
SQUID: I_had_an_apple_and_a_cup_of_orange juice.
WILMA: I_know.
SQUID: My_cup_is_empty.
WILMA: Henry_drank_it.
SQUID: Henry_stole_it.
WILMA: That's_a_matter_of_opinion.
Linking a
The word "a" is usually said as a schwa and sounds much like the short u sound unless it is being emphasized in a sentence for some reason.
To link to the word "a" between two consonant sounds, there should be no silent gap between the word "a" and the words that surround it. It will sound like it is a single longer word instead of two or more distinctly separate words.