Most pronunciation resources mash everything together: phonemes, allophones, prosody, intonation, all on one chart. We split American English into the four things you actually have to learn, in the order they get useful.
The 22 Vowels
Vowels are where ESL (English as a Second Language) accents live. Get the consonants right and people understand you; get the vowels right and people stop noticing the accent. We split the 22 into three sub-groups so you can practice them in the order that matters:
Monophthongs are the 9 single-target vowels (cat, bed, fun, sit, see, book, moon, father, saw). Diphthongs are the 6 vowels that move between two positions (day, my, go, now, boy), plus the /ju/ in cute, which is technically a /j/+/u/ glide that we group with diphthongs for ease of practice. R-colored vowels are the 7 vowels American English fuses with /r/ (bird, car, more, near, hair, tour, mother). Each gets its own page with mouth-shape, IPA, respelling, and 16+ example words.
Monophthongs · 9 Diphthongs · 6 R-vowels · 7
The 24 Consonants
Consonants are easier than vowels (most languages share most of them), but a handful are killers. The American /r/, the two TH sounds, the flap-T, and the bunched /l/ at word ends. We group all 24 by where in your mouth you make them, because that's the only grouping that helps you practice:
Lips (p, b, m, f, v, w). Teeth (the two TH sounds). Ridge behind the teeth (t, d, n, s, z, l, r). Palate (sh, zh, ch, j, y). Back of mouth (k, g, ng — at the soft palate; h is in the throat).
Lip · 6 Tooth · 2 Ridge · 7 Palate · 5 Back of mouth · 4
The 21 Connected-Speech Rules
This is the invisible layer of American speech. Native speakers don't pronounce every letter in every word; they reshape sounds based on what's around them. Water becomes WAA·der. Going to becomes gonna. Cup of becomes CUP·a. These aren't sloppy speech, they're required in American English.
We split the 21 rules into within-word changes (flap-T, glottal-T, dropped-T after N, dark-L) and across-word changes (linking, elision, function-word reduction, contractions).
Within-word · 12 Across-word · 9
The 30 Comparison Pages
A comparison page exists because some pairs of sounds are only learnable side by side. /æ/ versus /ɛ/ in cat vs bed. /v/ versus /w/. /n/ versus /ŋ/. Reading the cat page on its own won't fix a mix-up. You need to feel the contrast. So we built dedicated pages for the 30 pairs ESL speakers confuse most.
Each comparison page shows minimal pairs (cat/cot, ban/van, sun/sung), the one-second mouth-position fix, and a guided drill that loops both sounds.
Vowel pairs · 14 Consonant pairs · 16
