
The International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA - more widely used in Europe than in America - was created in the late 19th century in an attempt to standardize how spoken language was represented in print. Further complicating things, some consonant combinations, such as ‘ch’, ‘sh’, and ‘th’, create unique sounds. Some are made by closing your lips and others by touching your tongue to your teeth or the roof of your mouth.ĮSL learners can have difficulty mastering some consonants, such as ‘p’, ‘t’, and ‘k’, which are sounds that not all languages contain. Consonant exerciseĬonsonants are speech sounds that are created when you stop air from flowing easily through the mouth. He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much woodĪs a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Where’s the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked? Fuzzy Wuzzyįuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he? A Proper Cup of Coffee If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppersĪ peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked Take it slow the first few times and speed up gradually. “A Proper Cup of Coffee” emphasizes P’s and F’s while employing a variety of vowel sounds. Tongue twisters are tricky, but they can force you to enunciate similar sounding words to make each phrase intelligible.įor example, “Peter Piper” can help you learn to enunciate consonants (in this case, “P”). Whether you’re trying to perfect your English accent or just need help with the tricky parts of English pronunciation, our easy exercises and interactive printables will help you sound more like a native speaker and improve your pronunciation skills in no time. General tips to improve English pronunciationġ0 English pronunciation practice exercises & printables English pronunciation practice can be a challenging part of learning a new language, but our exercises and printables can help make practicing fun!.Sometimes we even publish articles with which we totally disagree, since we believe it is important for our readers to be informed on as wide a spectrum of views as possible. Our policy is to publish anything which we consider of interest, so as to assist our readers in forming their opinions. We remind our readers that publication of articles on our site does not mean that we agree with what is written. In Christ, Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans (Rome undefeated, eternal Rome, Rome capital of the world) Roma invicta, Roma aeterna, Roma caput mundi (To him who defeated great kings, Aleluiah!) Also the Latin pronunciation is all over the place, I think I just wasn’t focused enough on that day, so some phrases retain Classical Pronunciation and others use Ecclesiastical. I later remembered that this pronunciation was already extinct by the 3rd century A.D, so keep that anachronism in mind, it’s not accurate to any Byzantine era. A pretty major anachronistic mistake I made however is in the phrase: ἐν Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ, πιστός βασιλεὺς καὶ αὐτοκράτωρ Ῥωμαῖων (en Christó tó Theó, pistós vasilèfs kaí aftokrátor Romaíon)–I’ve been delving a little too long into Classical Greek literature and pronunciation, and so my natural reflex was to pronounce “Romaíon” as it “Romayion,” which is how it was pronounced in the Classical era of Socrates and Pericles. I don’t claim any authenticity with this piece beyond a very general Greek and Byzantine “vibe,” nothing more.įor the pronunciation, I tried doing some research to reproduce the pronunciation of very Late Antiquity to Early Byzantine times–the “x” sound in “pataxadi” would have likely been a mix of “kz” instead of “ks”, and the “ντ” cluster would have been pronounced literally as it is written, as a combination of “n” and “t” pronounced together instead of the modern hard “d” sound that you get in Modern Greek I won’t vouch for the utter certainty of that claim though, I might have been wrong. Please take note that this isn’t actual Byzantine music, nor does it seek to be–it’s modern “Epic” music which mixes a “film soundtrack” style with Modern Greek musical language to produce an image of Byzantine civilisation, not a reconstructive work. They were founded in the 9th century and ended in the 11th.

The Hikanatoi were an elite section of the Byzantine army based near Constantinople.
