This week we’re looking at our last voiceless and voiced consonant pair, /p/ and /b/. These are bilabial plosives, meaning they’re made with the lips, and the flow of air is stopped and then released to make them. Now, I usually find my learners can make these sounds in isolation, but there are a few things to look out for. The first one is to make sure you’re closing the lips firmly, and not making a fricative sound. A great way to practise this is to close your lips, push the air into your mouth, allowing your cheeks to well out, and then release. Of course, you wouldn’t do this when actually making the sound, but it can be a great way of practising that firmer lip position. If your lips are too loose, the air will sneak through. We’ll be coming back to this /b/ and /v/ contrast next week. The second thing to look out for is voicing, and that idea of aspiration we spoke about in the /k/ and /g/ episode last season. If you put your hand close to your lips as you say the word “puff”, you’ll feel a puff of air. You won’t feel it (at least not to the same extent) when you say the word “buff”. As I explained in that /k/ and /g/ episode, this is a pretty complicated area of pronunciation but basically is all to do with the time (and we’re talking milliseconds here) in between making the voiceless consonant sound and turning on the vocal cords for the vowel sound. In “puff”, there is a small gap between finishing that consonant sound and turning on the voice for the vowel. You’ll notice this at the beginnings of words or before stressed syllables, especially before vowel sounds and, if your language has the /p/ sound but turns on the voice sooner, in English it may sound more like a /b/. It’s interesting to really pay attention to the position of the /p/ or /b/ sound in a word: are you voicing it (or not aspirating) at the beginning of a word, making your /p/ sound more like /b/? Or, are you devoicing, perhaps particularly at the end of a word, so your /b/ sounds like /p/? One final, final thing to note at this point, is that /p/ tends not to be aspirated in ‘sp’ clusters, and can sound pretty indistinguishable from /b/ here, for example if we think of “display”, or “respond” or “sport” That’s the only time this happens, though – I’ve avoided these clusters today, and I expect we’ll do another episode on these clusters one day!
Ok, it’s time to practise some common words with each sound. We have a lot to practise this week, so it’s going to be quite a long one!
Let’s start with /p/. You’ll find the /p/ in a mixture of word positions and sound combinations here, so pay attention to those you find easiest.
/p/
1. accompany
2. apartment
3. apple
4. chapter
5. cheap
6. complex
7. computer
8. depend
9. help
10.hope
11.imply
12.interpret
13.keep
14.opposite
15.option
16.paper
17.past
18.people
19.please
20.popular
21.repeat
22.scope
23.shop
24.topic
..And a couple of sentences with those words:
Please accompany me to the apartment opposite the paper shop.
We hoped to keep interpreting the topic without depending on your help.
Let’s now move on to /b/
/b/
1. available
2. baby
3. beautiful
4. boring
5. brief
6. club
7. combination
8. debate
9. describe
10.enable
11.hobby
12.husband
13.job
14.label
15.library
16.maybe
17.neighbour
18.objective
19.obvious
20.submit
21.trouble
22.umbrella
23.visible
24.web
…And a couple of sentences with those words:
- My neighbour briefly met Bob’s beautiful baby at the library.
- This obviously enabled a combination of web-based debates.
Ok, now let’s look at a few words with both sounds: how easily can you move between them?
1. backup
2. bumpy
3. capable
4. compatible
5. hubcap
6. payback
7. pebble
8. probably
9. problem
10.pub
…And a sentence with these words: The problem is probably the incompatible backup.
Minimal pairs with /p/ and /b/ at the beginning of the word.
There are loads of these – I’ll put a few extra in the transcript.
We’ll read the first eight together:
1. base pace
2. beach peach
3. beak peak/ peek
4. bear pair/ pear
5. bee pee
6. beer peer/ pier
7. big pig
8. bill pill
For the next six, I’ll read the /b/ word: can you read both? We’ll do the first one together as an example.
9. bitch pitch
So, you should have read “bitch, pitch”, or if you read “bitch, pitch” that’s fine too!
Let’s do the next five:
10.blade played
11.blank plank
12.bleed plead
13.bore poor
14.braise praise
Now listen, repeat again, and see how you did.
And for the last six, I’ll read the /p/ word: can you read both? Again, we’ll do the first one together as an example.
15.breast pressed
So, you should have said: “pressed, breast”, or if you said “breast, pressed”, that’s fine too!
Let’s do the next five:
16.bride pride
17.bull pull
18.buy pie
19.cab cap
20.robe rope
Now listen, repeat again, and see how you did.
Finally, let’s do a couple of sentences with those words.
He pulled the bull past the big pig.
We’re going to buy a peach pie for the beach.
Here’s a fuller list of minimal pairs:
1. base pace
2. beach peach
3. beak peak/ peek
4. bear pair/ pear
5. bee pee/ pea
6. beer peer/ pier
7. bet pet
8. big pig
9. bill pill
10.bin pin
11.bit pit
12.bitch pitch
13.blade played
14.bland planned
15.blank plank
16.blaster plaster
17.bleed plead
18.blush plush
19.bore poor/ pour
20.bought port
21.braise praise
22.brat prat
23.brawn prawn
24.breast pressed
25.breech preach
26.brick prick
27.bride pride
28.bull pull
29.buy pie
30.cab cap
31.pub pup
32.robe rope