Hi everyone, and welcome to this 26th American English pronunciation podcast. As always, this podcast is produced by Seattle Learning Academy. If you are new to this show, my name is Mandy, and I'd like to welcome you.

I'm really excited today because as I was planning this topic,

I realized that we're down to only three more sounds to learn about.

Today we're going to talk about two of those three sounds, the G sound and K sound. Next week we'll talk about the very last

sound, the H sound. Don't worry. I still have lots and lots of topics to get into more detail about.

I'm just glad that I'll finally have the opportunity to do that now that the basics of sound

will all be covered. One thing I've been looking forward to talking about is syllable stress,

so I may start talking about that topic in two or three weeks. Let's get started with today's

show about the G sound and K sound.

The reason these sounds got left to the end is that people really do not make too many big errors with these sounds, with one exception.

I hear lots and lots of non-native speakers only say the K sound at the end of the word, and never the G sound.

These sounds are stops, meaning we stop all the air for a tiny bit of time, then let it go.

The G sound and K sound are made at the back of our mouth by pressing our tongue up against the soft palate, then letting go with a little puff of air.

The G sound is voiced, the K sound is unvoiced.

Listen to the sounds. G sound, K sound. G. K.

Now some people call the G sound the hard G and the J sound, the soft G.

It's always a little confusing when one letter can have two sounds.

I call the first sound of the word girl, the G sound,

and the first sound of the word giant, a J sound,

because the letter J is usually only said as j,

even though it can be spelled with a J or a G.

Let's say some minimal pairs between the G sound and K sound.

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