#36: American English pronunciation of the word "palpable"
#36: American English pronunciation of the word palpable There are plenty of reasons to be able to say this word!
Transcript Hi everyone, and welcome back to Seattle Learning Academy's American English Pronunciation Podcast. My name is Mandy, and this is our 36th episode. I'm going to explore another word in depth today.
That word is palpable . p-a-l-p-a-b-l-e Palpable is not a high-frequency word, it's just a fun word to say, and an excellent practice word for languages that have difficulty with the p sound , b sound , l sound , and short a sound. In case you're curious, palpable is a word that means something can be touched or felt. It is often used with a feeling in the air, such as fear, excitement, or nervousness. A sentence might be: The children's fear during the typhoon was palpable.
Say the word palpable to get a feel for it.
Palpable. Enough about what it means, let's talk about how to say it.
Palpable has two p sounds. Korean speakers have a problem with making the p sound as an f sound . Palpable also has a b sound . Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Korean speakers all have a tendency to say the b sound as a v sound . Russian and Arabic speakers have trouble saying the p sound and b sound differently. With those two languages the sounds comes out as a b sound , no matter which sound it is. There are also two l sounds in the word, so Japanese speakers need to be careful of that, and Chinese especially need to be sure that the final l doesn't sound like a w sound . Palpable also has a short a sound, ( short a ) and every language seems to have trouble with that sound, especially if you learned British pronunciation and are now trying to use a more American accent. Listen to the word again, palpable.
Palpable. I'm going to break it apart by sound ( p sound ) ( short a ) ( l sound ) ( p sound ) ( schwa ) ( b sound ) ( l sound ) The p sound and b sound are stops, so, if you put your hand in front of your mouth, you should feel three distinct puffs of air during this sound, palpable. Can you tell how many syllables are in the word palpable, and which one is stressed?
Palpable. Palpable has the suffix -able . I didn't talk about this in any previous syllable stress podcasts, but the - able suffix causes the word to be stressed on the third from the last syllable, or for this word, the first syllable (since it is a 3-syllable word). Listen to the word again and notice where the stress is, palpable.
Repeat it after me, palpable. Say it again. Palpable. Very good.
Along with the free transcripts to this podcast, which you can find at pronuncian.com, I will link to all the previous podcast episodes that are related to this show, and the online lessons so you can learn more. Don't forget you can post any questions you have on the Pronuncian forums. It is absolutely free. Also, check out the remote assessment on the Products page and learn how you can have a Seattle Learning Academy teacher assess your pronunciation. If you want to purchase the MP3 sound downloads of the sounds of American English, they are only $10US, and you'll get 4 1/2 hours of audio practice, including all the sounds in the word palpable. I am going to try to have the first video podcast to be the first podcast of 2009.
Only 6 more podcasts to go before then! All right, that's all for today, everyone!
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Bye-bye.
