Today's tip:清濁輔音結尾對元音長度的影響

講座中出現的一些詞：
consonant 輔音（子音）
vowel 元音（母音）
voiced consonant 濁輔音（有聲子音）
voiceless consonant 清輔音（無聲子音）

（注：以下是我聽寫出來的內容，疏漏之處在所難免，大家如發現錯誤請發短消息告訴我，以便及時更改）

Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on how different vowel lengths are used to differentiate words ending in voiced and voiceless consonants.

Let’s take an example. There’s something in my eyes. There’s something in my ice. The last words in the examples, eyes and ice differ in 2 ways. One difference is the word eyes end with the sound “z”, and ice end with the sound “s”. The other difference in the pronunciation of “eyes” and “ice” is how the vowel sound “ai” is pronounced. In the word “eyes”, it is longer. In the word “ice”, it is very short.

Listen to the examples again, and note that the final consonant sound is not as clear as the difference in the length of the vowel. There’s something in my eyes. There’s something in my ice. Listen again. There’s something in my eyes. There’s something in my ice. Listen to some other examples of words that are identical except for the final consonants and the vowel length. Cap, cab, plate, played, seat, seed. Today’s tip is to pay more attention to the length of vowels, as this difference is very important in distinguishing some words. Till then, tomorrow, to another tip on learning English.