Minimal Pairs Two - Initial Blends in Open Syllables (Blend + Vowel)

by Sally Jennings

There are different ways to divide and group consonant combinations. Although I have used the title "initial blends," I have tried to stay with a more traditional linguistic approach, based on features of each consonantal sound.

All entries are either whole words or syllables. Syllables are shown as -x, x-, or -x-. A square with"-----" means I could not think of a word or syllable in English with these sounds, but there may be one. Capitalized entries are either proper names, or interjections.

"j" is a single consonant, but as an affricate, is two sounds [dʒ] stop plus fricative. "sh" and "th" are spelled as two consonants, but are single sounds (digraphs), so I have isolated them at the bottom of the chart. I have not included the voiced version of [ʃ] ("sh"), [ʒ] ("z" as the s in measure). The entries for "th" include words with a voiceless "th" [θ ] and a voiced "th" [ð]. A few entries are three consonantal sounds in a cluster, "skr," "spl," "spr," "sq," "str."

The list may be read across or down in groups. Reading down by columns, every word in the column should have the same vowel sound. I have left out some archaic words but included the more common "thee" and "thou."

Some dialects of English may have an alternate pronunciation for [ɔ] as [ɑ ] or [ɒ] . I have not made a distinction here, since I pronounce the words "father," "bother," "hawed," and "caught" with the same vowel.

Instead of leaving you wondering what the complete words for syllables shown are, here they are line by line: crumbly, blatant, abbreviate, broken, embroider, candelabra, cheetah, chosen, closure, climate, cloister, crayon, Croydon, flower, frozen, frugal, glaucoma, glycol, agree, McGraw, plausible, plosive, Pluto, premature, promise, promote, prudent, Shriver, scalene, Scotia, scuba, spelunker, spoken, explosion (-splo-), sprocket, steeple, history, strident, destroy, metro, trowel, extra, shower, Elisha, Matthew.

If you are teaching all sounds without regard to viable words you can, of course, fill the empty squares with "fake" syllables.

For a simpler minimal pairs pronunciation exercise, with mp3 audio, go to:
Speak Read Write Minimal Pairs

For a much more fun(!) excercise with minimal pairs, and other word sets, go to:
Speak Read Write Fun with Fiddle Faddle and Other Pronunciation Pairs

Last, but not least, if you want real tongue twister exercise, go to:
Speak Read Write Tongue Twisters Pronunciation Practice One

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