[pʰ] - Aspirated Voiceless Bilabial Plosive Sound

A short animation about the English aspirated /p/ sound and when it isn't aspirated.
#pronunciation #britishenglish #consonant

[@oliver_merida]

Now I know the difference. Thank you. 👍

[@LewisCampbellTech]

my issue is that 'p' sounds exactly the same as 'b' to me.

[@PronunciationStudio]

This is where aspiration can help - when we make /b/ there is no puff of air, when we make /p/ there normally is so this should be clear in a pair like BUN/PUN. But when /p/ is unaspirated, like in SPEAK, it does sound very similar to /b/.

[@yeen4204]

this is a common difficulty among English speakers (including myself of course) since the difference between English “p” and “b” is as much about aspiration as it is voicing, so we hear an unaspirated “p” on its own or in the beginning of a syllable and our brains just decide that’s enough information to call it a “b”. it’s sometimes a tricky distinction to get at first but focusing on why it’s hard makes it a lot easier imo

[@alechinshaw5990]

The difference is that your larynx isn’t vibrating.

[@wtz_under]

its an issue when it comes to listening in korean. they typically dont voice those consonants

[@artugert]

Monolingual English speakers who have never studied a language that differentiates them, probably won't be able to hear the difference.

[@Phoenix-np1iu]

Trying to learn a way to do unaspirated p at the beginning of a word but not sound like b

[@malikobaid-li7em]

Nice

[@lucianasoledad976]

In the world people there is aspiration or unaspiration

[@gemarodriguezvillegas3095]

👍

[@zephyr9949]

Are these audibly different? I mean the answer to that is yes but can people actually tell immediately whether what someone is saying is aspirated or not? Because I’m struggling to and I must hover my hand over my mouth to know.

[@PronunciationStudio]

They are definitely audibly different to a native English speaker. So if you say [pat] (unaspirated) and [pʰat] (aspirated) a native will probably hear the first one as BAT and the second as PAT because English doesn't have an isolated unaspirated /p/. The opposite doesn't matter so much, so if you aspirate /p/ in a word where it wouldn't be aspirated like SPOON, it won't be confused, though it would sound a bit strange. For practising it, I would just recommend exaggeration to begin with - feel that air leave your body!

[@pacocafe]

Hindi speakers have to differentiate between those and even aspirated b, d and g

[@pacocafe]

Also for the love of god put a piece of paper in front of your mouth instead of a fucking lighter

[@irhashshalihin3741]

It depends on what the person's native language is. To me, since my native language is Malay, and we do not aspirate the sound of /p/ at all, so I can tell immediately when a /p/ is aspirated or not. The sound difference is very clear to me. But for English native speakers, I belive they might struggle a little more to distinguish them since in English /p/ is aspirated, especially at the beginning of a word. So they tend to hear /p/ and /pʰ/ as the same sound and need more practice to distinguish them.

[@abdullahtariq1975]

When is P aspirated and when unaspirated?! 😅

[@Blinful]

P is aspirated at the beginning of the word (pot). It is not aspirated if you have ‘s+p’ (speak) or at the end of the word (hop).