English Pronunciation Tip of the Day
Tip 67
Category:
Miscellaneous
Author: JAM
Clipping
Listen to the following two sound clips:
| beat | /bi:t/ | |
| bead | /bi:d/ |
Can you hear that the vowel in the first is shorter than the vowel in the second? I measured the durations of the two vowels. The one in beat is approximately 240 ms (= thousandths of a second) and the one in bead is approximately 400 ms. This reduction of duration is known as clipping and it is caused by a following voiceless consonant in the same syllable.
Clipping is important in many varieties of English. If you do not make vowels short when you should then there is a danger that a native speaker may think that the following consonant is voiced. Here are some more clipped/unclipped pairs of words.
| Clipped | Unclipped | |
| aitch | age | |
| court | cord | |
| loose | lose |