Learning Syllables in English - What is a Syllable?

hi everyone and welcome back to the english  danny channel i'm teacher john and i'm here to  

help you become great at learning english today's  topic is syllables okay or units of pronunciation  

in english and this topic it can be a little  bit difficult okay so if you're having trouble  

with understanding the syllables in english it's  okay if you need to watch this video again to to  

really understand uh the more complicated parts of  learning syllables in english first let's answer  

the question what is a syllable well a syllable is  one unit of pronunciation all right or one sound  

and this unit must contain one vowel sound and  can contain up to two other consonant sounds  

so examples of this okay a very simple syllable  would be just one vowel sound like for example  

the letter o makes an o or a sound or you could  have one consonant sound and one vowel sound  

and together they would make bo okay but also  you can also have two consonant sounds okay  

and one one vowel sound for example both here  the consonant sounds are in the beginning and the  

end of the syllable so it's also important to  note that the consonant sounds can come before  

or after the vowel sounds an example of uh the  consonant sound coming before the vowel is d d e  

okay d e is one consonant and vowel sound together  or one syllable in the words definitely or depend  

and an example of the consonant sound  coming after the vowel sounds would be  

eat eat or in the word seat so english  syllables they usually use this type of  

structure for syllables one consonant set plus  a vowel set and then sometimes also there will  

be another consonant set after the vowel set so  it goes consonant vowel consonant it is possible  

to only have a vowel or only a vowel and a  consonant but very often there's all three  

consonant vowel consonant let's go ahead and  let's look at some examples of this a consonant  

and a vowel such as b plus e would make the  word b okay and that would be one syllable

a consonant plus a vowel plus another  consonant for example b plus e plus d  

makes the word bed and this is also one syllable  

so we can also have a consonant set  okay which means there's more than one  

letter okay so consonant set plus vowel set  plus another consonant set for example br  

plus e a plus d s makes the word breads and breads  is also one syllable what i call consonant sets  

are often called clusters or blends and there  are 26 possible two consonant clusters in english  

here is a chart of all of the  different clusters that we can use

there are also six possible three consonant  clusters in english but we usually only use  

five of them and here's a here's a table with  the different three consonant clusters in english

so let's try guessing how  many syllables each word has

all right our first word is cat

this word uses a consonant a vowel and  then a consonant which is one syllable

our next word is mountain  

mountain this word uses a consonant set plus a  vowel and then a consonant okay twice two times so  

you can see here it's i separated it for you  mound ten okay consonant vowel or vowel set  

and then a consonant is one syllable and that's  that's here two times so mountain is two syllables

chat this uses a consonant set plus a vowel  plus one consonant so it is one syllable

chant this uses a consonant set plus a vowel  plus a consonant set so it is also one syllable

and here we have a long word communication

communication all right you can see here that  i separated all of the different syllables  

okay so let me use my pen here you can see  here starts with consonant vowel consonant  

then consonant vowel consonant okay then we  have just one vowel but that's okay of just  

a vowel it's possible in english that can  be a syllable then we have a consonant  

and a vowel that's also okay okay  that's one syllable and here we have  

consonant then a vowel set and a consonant so that  is also a syllable so this word has five syllables

if we look at this word maybe you are thinking hmm  

where should i separate the sounds  okay well actually is not very  

important okay so here i have two different  uh pronunciations of the word communication  

and there number one okay you can see here i  put i is it's a separate syllable okay commune

okay that's one syllable but  here i separated them differently  

okay in in the second example  here i have com that's the same

communication all right this is also okay  all right it doesn't matter because uh both  

uh both separate separate the sounds  using the consonant vowel consonant  

model so it is okay english speaking rhythm a  little bit all right so if you want to have a  

good rhythm when you speak english it's very  important to clearly pronounce each syllable okay  

so how can we practice using the syllables  to achieve a good rhythm when we are speaking  

well we can use this we can use tongue twisters  to practice an example of a tongue twister is this  

peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers  

all right maybe that's a little bit difficult  for you to say or to read especially quickly  

so first we must separate the syllables okay  so let's go ahead let's do that all right so  

here i separated the syllables for you okay and  now you must try to read each syllable clearly  

so let's read it together slowly but clearly  peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers  

you can also combine the word a or a with  a consonant sound that comes before it okay  

so here you can see that's exactly what i did  with these words here picked uh we can combine  

uh the syllables okay so let's read it one more  time but now let's combine the syllables peter  

piper picked a peck of pickled peppers alright  everyone that's our video for today thank you so  

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