Buy pies! /p/ and /b/ in English.

Welcome back to season 4 of English Sound Building! Today, we're looking at our last voiceless/ voiced consonant pair: /p/ and /b/. We’ll look at the sounds individually, in common words, and in sentences. 

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Transcript

This week we’re looking at our last voiceless and voiced consonant pair, /p/ and /b/. These are bilabial plosives, meaning they’re made with the lips, and the flow of air is stopped and then released to make them. Now, I usually find my learners can make these sounds in isolation, but there are a few things to look out for. The first one is to make sure you’re closing the lips firmly, and not making a fricative sound. A great way to practise this is to close your lips, push the air into your mouth, allowing your cheeks to well out, and then release. Of course, you wouldn’t do this when actually making the sound, but it can be a great way of practising that firmer lip position. If your lips are too loose, the air will sneak through. We’ll be coming back to this /b/ and /v/ contrast next week. The second thing to look out for is voicing, and that idea of aspiration we spoke about in the /k/ and /g/ episode last season. If you put your hand close to your lips as you say the word “puff”, you’ll feel a puff of air. You won’t feel it (at least not to the same extent) when you say the word “buff”. As I explained in that /k/ and /g/ episode, this is a pretty complicated area of pronunciation but basically is all to do with the time (and we’re talking milliseconds here) in between making the voiceless consonant sound and turning on the vocal cords for the vowel sound. In “puff”, there is a small gap between finishing that consonant sound and turning on the voice for the vowel. You’ll notice this at the beginnings of words or before stressed syllables, especially before vowel sounds and, if your language has the /p/ sound but turns on the voice sooner, in English it may sound more like a /b/. It’s interesting to really pay attention to the position of the /p/ or /b/ sound in a word: are you voicing it (or not aspirating) at the beginning of a word, making your /p/ sound more like /b/? Or, are you devoicing, perhaps particularly at the end of a word, so your /b/ sounds like /p/? One final, final thing to note at this point, is that /p/ tends not to be aspirated in ‘sp’ clusters, and can sound pretty indistinguishable from /b/ here, for example if we think of “display”, or “respond” or “sport” That’s the only time this happens, though – I’ve avoided these clusters today, and I expect we’ll do another episode on these clusters one day!

Ok, it’s time to practise some common words with each sound. We have a lot to practise this week, so it’s going to be quite a long one!

Let’s start with /p/. You’ll find the /p/ in a mixture of word positions and sound combinations here, so pay attention to those you find easiest.

/p/

1.   accompany

2.   apartment

3.   apple

4.   chapter

5.   cheap

6.   complex

7.   computer

8.   depend

9.   help

10.hope

11.imply

12.interpret

13.keep

14.opposite

15.option

16.paper

17.past

18.people

19.please

20.popular

21.repeat

22.scope

23.shop

24.topic

..And a couple of sentences with those words:

Please accompany me to the apartment opposite the paper shop.

We hoped to keep interpreting the topic without depending on your help.

Let’s now move on to /b/

/b/

1.   available

2.   baby

3.   beautiful

4.   boring

5.   brief

6.   club

7.   combination

8.   debate

9.   describe

10.enable

11.hobby

12.husband

13.job

14.label

15.library

16.maybe

17.neighbour

18.objective

19.obvious

20.submit

21.trouble

22.umbrella

23.visible

24.web

…And a couple of sentences with those words:

• My neighbour briefly met Bob’s beautiful baby at the library.
• This obviously enabled a combination of web-based debates.

Ok, now let’s look at a few words with both sounds: how easily can you move between them? 

1.   backup

2.   bumpy

3.   capable

4.   compatible

5.   hubcap

6.   payback

7.   pebble

8.   probably

9.   problem

10.pub

…And a sentence with these words: The problem is probably the incompatible backup.

Minimal pairs with /p/ and /b/ at the beginning of the word.

There are loads of these – I’ll put a few extra in the transcript.

We’ll read the first eight together:

1.   base   pace

2.   beach peach

3.   beak peak/ peek

4.   bear   pair/ pear

5.   bee    pee

6.   beer   peer/ pier

7.   big     pig

8.   bill     pill

For the next six, I’ll read the /b/ word: can you read both? We’ll do the first one together as an example.

9.   bitch  pitch

So, you should have read “bitch, pitch”, or if you read “bitch, pitch” that’s fine too!

Let’s do the next five: 

10.blade           played

11.blank          plank

12.bleed          plead

13.bore            poor

14.braise          praise

Now listen, repeat again, and see how you did.

And for the last six, I’ll read the /p/ word: can you read both? Again, we’ll do the first one together as an example.

15.breast         pressed

So, you should have said: “pressed, breast”, or if you said “breast, pressed”, that’s fine too!

Let’s do the next five:

16.bride          pride

17.bull             pull

18.buy             pie

19.cab             cap

20.robe            rope

Now listen, repeat again, and see how you did.

Finally, let’s do a couple of sentences with those words.

He pulled the bull past the big pig.

We’re going to buy a peach pie for the beach.

Here’s a fuller list of minimal pairs:

1.   base            pace

2.   beach          peach

3.   beak          peak/ peek

4.   bear            pair/ pear

5.   bee             pee/ pea

6.   beer            peer/ pier

7.   bet              pet

8.   big              pig

9.   bill              pill

10.bin              pin

11.bit               pit

12.bitch          pitch

13.blade           played

14.bland          planned

15.blank          plank

16.blaster         plaster

17.bleed          plead

18.blush          plush

19.bore            poor/ pour

20.bought        port

21.braise          praise

22.brat            prat

23.brawn          prawn

24.breast         pressed

25.breech         preach

26.brick           prick

27.bride          pride

28.bull             pull

29.buy             pie

30.cab             cap

31.pub             pup

32.robe            rope