How to pronounce consonant clusters
Alex CaseConsonant clusters like “spr-” and “-mps” can be tricky to understand and/ or produce, but this can be made easier with the few simple techniques which are described in this article. (Words with audio are in green.)
What are consonant clusters?
Consonant clusters are two or more consonants (/b/, /k/, /d/, etc) that are pronounced next to each other in the same syllable without a vowel (/e/, /:i/, etc) between them. For example, the word “spa” has only one syllable and starts with the consonant cluster /sp/.
In contrast, “super” has two syllables and no consonant cluster because the vowel sound /u:/ comes between the consonants /s/ and /p/. Consonant clusters can be “initial consonant clusters” at the beginning of words like “spl-” and “cr-” or “final consonant clusters” at the end of words like “-nts” and “-sl”.
Why should I study consonant clusters?
People learning English often either add vowel sounds and so extra syllables to consonant clusters or miss out sounds in them. For example, learners may make the one-syllable word “sprints” into “esprints”, “suprints” or “sprins”. This not only makes the words difficult to understand for people listening, but also means that those learners will probably not recognise those words when they hear them said with the normal sounds and number of syllables. In addition, this pronunciation point is easy and motivating to study and practice.
How to pronounce consonant clusters
The most important part of the description above is that consonant clusters happen in the same syllable. This means that if we add another consonant to make a consonant cluster, the number of syllables does not change, as in these lists of one-syllable words:
- am/ amp/ lamp/ lamps
- eight/ late/ plate
These lists also show the best way of pronouncing consonant clusters, which is to build the word up sound by sound from a simple root, making sure that you don’t lose any sounds and that the number of syllables stays the same. To make sure that you don’t add any extra syllables, you could beat out the rhythm of the root word and make sure that your pronunciation doesn’t add an extra beat as you add more consonant sounds. For example, you could slap your fist into your other palm once as you say “eye”, “lie” and then “fly”, trying again if the last one becomes “fulie” and so there is another beat after your fist reaches your palm.
This works just as well starting from roots which aren’t English words, like:
- oo/ roo/ through
How to practise consonant clusters
The word building technique above can be used every time that you learn a new word with a consonant cluster and/ or every time that you can’t catch words with consonant clusters when you are listening to English.
Particularly if you couldn’t catch such a word, it is also really useful to do shadow reading with a sentence or two that has a consonant cluster in it. For example, if you couldn’t exactly catch the word “wants” in “We have to think about both needs and wants”, you could concentrate on the rhythm of the sentence as you listen a couple of times, then try to match that rhythm (and all the included sounds) as you say it together with the recording.
Another possibility is to do work with consonant cluster minimal pairs. For example, if you have problems recognising both consonant sounds at the end of “hands”, you could try saying “Hans” and “hands” right after each other, making sure that the sounds change but the number of syllables stays the same.
Links for teachers: