I'm Kenan, your personal American English pronunciation coach.

Let me ask you, have you ever been in a situation where you're sharing information like your name or maybe the street that you live on?

Or perhaps you're having a conversation and there's a certain word that's unclear between you and your listener, and you might be asked to spell something out.

This can be helpful sometimes, or it can make things more tricky, depending on how you're pronouncing the letters of the English alphabet.

The tendency for a lot of non-native speakers is to pronounce the letter names in a more short and choppy fashion.

This can make some of the letter names hard to distinguish and others really difficult to understand.

This problem can be solved by learning to give more emphasis to the vowel sounds that are at the core of the letter names.

So in this lesson, we're going to talk about pronouncing the letter names of all the letters in the English alphabet.

This is going to really help you in those instances where you're asked to spell something out.

And be sure to stay tuned to the end of the lesson, where I'll give you a bonus tip on using stress, emphasis, and pausing when spelling to make sure that these interactions are clear and successful.

So let's dive in so you can see what I mean by emphasizing these vowel sounds.

All right, starting first with the letter A, A.

The name of this vowel sound is the same as what I call the letter name A vowel sound.

Same as in the word gray, same, or complain.

For this vowel sound and the name of this letter, you want to drop your jaw and bring it back up.

A, A.

There's two parts to this sound, and you can get them both by dropping the jaw and bringing it back up.

You need more movement to emphasize this sound.

A, A.

B, and our next four letters have the same vowel sound, E, E.

The sides of the lips retract just a bit for this sound, and you want to give it more stretch, more duration, and a little more energy.

E.

Our lips come together for the buh, buh sound and go into the vowel E.

B, B.

C.

Again, that E vowel sound following the s consonant.

C, C.

D, D.

Again, the E vowel sound.

If you just hold that sound a little longer, give it a little stretch, and start first with the tongue up behind the teeth to the alveolar ridge for the duh sound.

D, D.

E, E.

The name of this letter is the same as what I call, again, the letter name vowel sound E that we just worked on with our previous few letters.

E, E.

F, F.

We start first with the vowel sound eh, as in red or bed.

Eh, eh.

You're going to drop your jaw just a bit for this sound, eh, and then roll into the F consonant by letting your teeth and bottom lip come together.

F, F.

G.

There's that E vowel sound again.

G.

Starting first with the j as in joke consonant, going into the E vowel sound.

G, G.

H, H.

There's that A vowel sound again, where we're dropping the jaw and bringing it back up, then moving into the ch as in chips consonant sound.

H, H.

Next one, I, I.

Again, the name of this letter is the vowel sound that I call the letter name I, as in white or bike.

Again, you need more movement for this sound.

The jaw is going to drop down and come back up.

I, I.

J, J.

Our A vowel sound, with that jaw dropping down and coming back up.

A, with the consonant j as in joke right before that.

J, J.

K, K.

Again, the A vowel sound, with the jaw dropping and coming back up.

Coming after the k, k consonant sound, where the back of the tongue is rising up towards the palate.

K, K.

Now, the consonant is an air puff sound, meaning it's made with a tiny puff of air.

And you want to make sure that K gets the puff of air, or else it may sound more like gay.

K, K.

Now, our next three letters all start with the vowel sound eh, as in red.

L, with the eh vowel sound rolling into the dark L, where the back of the tongue is coming back and down.

L, L.

Or you can pronounce an L by bringing the tip of the tongue behind the top front teeth to the alveolar ridge.

You just want to hold your tongue there.

L, L.

Just want to make sure you give a little more emphasis to that eh vowel sound.

L, M.

Again, we start with that eh vowel sound, dropping the jaw just a bit.

M, bringing the lips together for the mm consonant, with air flowing out through the nose.

M, M.

Next comes N, N.

Again, our eh vowel sound rolling into the n consonant, where the tip of the tongue comes up to the alveolar ridge behind the top front teeth, and the air is flowing out the nose.

N, N.

Then we have O, O.

Another letter name that is a vowel sound on its own.

The O as in gold or no.

For this sound, you want to make sure those lips are really rounding out and stretch the sound.

Give it a little more duration.

O, O.

You don't want it to be oh, oh.

You want O, O.

Then we have P, P.

Again, our eh vowel sound coming after the consonant p, p, where the lips come together.

P, P.

Again, the p is another of those air puff sounds, meaning it's made with a tiny puff of air being released.

P.

You want to make sure you have that air puff, or else it might sound more like B.

P, P.

Q, Q.

Our vowel sound in this letter name is the U.

You want to make sure that your lips are rounding out for this sound.

So we're going from the K consonant, where the back of the tongue rises up to the palate, and then the lips are moving forward.

Q, Q.

Then we have R, R.

We have the ah vowel sound moving into the er, er.

You want to really drop your jaw for that ah vowel sound.

R, R.

And S, S.

Again, this letter name starts out with that eh vowel sound, where you're dropping the jaw just a bit and moving into the s consonant.

S, S.

Then T, T.

Again, the e vowel sound coming after the t, t consonant, with the tip of the tongue coming behind the teeth to the alveolar ridge.

And this is another air puff sound.

You want to make sure that there's a tiny puff of air releasing with the t in T, T.

Or else it might sound more like D, D.

Try it with me.

T, T.

Then we have U, U.

Again, the name of this letter is the vowel sound U, as in the word cute or the word you.

For this vowel sound, we're gliding from the ya to ooh.

U, U.

You want to make sure that those lips are really rounding out for this sound.

U, U.

Then moving on to V, V.

Again, that e vowel sound coming after the consonant v, where the top teeth are connecting with the bottom lip, v.

Our vocal cords are engaging for the voiced v, V, V.

Then W, W.

The first part of this letter name, the word double, double, as in taking something times two.

We're doubling.

Double U.

There's that U sound again, with our lips rounding out, gliding from the ya, rounding out to ooh.

U, W, W.

Then moving on to X, X.

The e vowel sound starts this one, dropping the jaw just a bit for e.

Then moving into a consonant blend, the k sound and the s consonant, ks, ks.

X, X.

Then Y, Y.

We have the I vowel sound, where that jaw is dropping down and coming back up, I, I.

Coming after the w consonant, Y.

You want to really round your lips for that w, w sound, then the jaw dropping down and up for the I, Y, Y.

And last but certainly not least, Z, Z.

Again, our e vowel sound coming after the consonant z, made just like the consonant sound s, except you're adding your voice.

This is a voiced sound, Z, Z.

All right, so let's run through all these letter names together from the top.

Are you ready?

Say them with me.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Nice job.

So definitely adding a little more emphasis and energy to the vowel sounds that are at the core of all these letter names will definitely make them more clear when you're spelling.

Another thing that you want to keep in mind, an extra bonus tip to being clear when you're spelling something, you want to deliver your letters in chunks of two to four letters.

And your emphasis is going to fall on the last letter in your chunk.

Then you can pause for just a second before moving on to the next chunk of letters.

So for example, if I'm spelling my name, I'm going to break it down into two chunks of three letters.

K-E-E-N-Y-N.

My emphasis is falling on the E and the N at the end of these chunks of letters.

K-E-E, pause, N-Y-N.

If I'm spelling my street name, M-A-P-L-E.

M-A-P-L-E.

Again, emphasis falling on the P and E letter Still clear and distinct with the other letters, but giving final emphasis and a bit of a pause after the P and E.

M-A-P-L-E.

And if I'm spelling a tough word like this one, S-Q-U-I-R-R-E-L.

Do you hear how I'm emphasizing those letters at the end of chunks?

S-Q-U-I-R-R-E-L.

Squirrel.

Squirrel.

Such a tough word.

S-K.

S-K.

The S-K blend moving to a W.

Squir.

Squir.

Squir.

With that tongue curling up a bit, sides of the tongue on the back top molars for the R.

Squirrel.

Dark L.

Squirrel.

Squirrel.

All right, so there you have it.

Hopefully, next time you find yourself in a situation where you need to spell something out, you can use these tips to alleviate some potential frustration.

I hope you found the lesson helpful.

If you did, please be sure to share with friends that you think will also benefit from hearing these tips.

As always, thanks so much for tuning in, and I'll see you next time.