Fasc. I · No. 001A phonetic herbariumApril · MMXXVI

slaytheaccent

A field study of the forty-four sounds of English, pressed and labeled.
Herbarium · slaytheaccent
N° 001 / 044
ɾ
alveolar tap — very quick, voiced, between two vowels
Phylum · Consonantesen-US
Tactus alveolaris
the flap, between vowels

found natively between two vowels in North American English. often misidentified in L2 speakers as a voiceless T.

Plate I · Specimen no. 001

Collect the sounds you forgot to bring across the border.

Slaytheaccent is a coach that treats the English phoneme as a specimen. We record it, align it against a native reference, and press it between two sheets of acoustic glass until you can see exactly which one is yours and which one is theirs.

No streaks, no leagues, no coloured owls. Just the forty-four sounds, laid out on a table, in the order they most need your attention.

Open the field-book →
record once. drill the wrong
ones. repeat until the ear
stops flinching.

The method, abridged.

§ II — in three plates
Plate 01

Press.

Recordari · capturam

Three seconds of speech, your phone mic, no performed enunciation. We trim the silence so the specimen is clean.

Plate 02

Label.

Designatio phonemica

Three acoustic models align your audio against a native reference. Every phoneme gets a diagnosis — expected, observed, distance.

Plate 03

Return.

Iteratio donec bene

Weakest phonemes rise in the drill queue. You shadow the native, re-press the specimen, watch the labels improve.

A taxonomy of the mouth.

ordered by place of articulation
pbilabial · stop
pat, pink
Occlusio bilabialis
en-US
bbilabial · stop
bat, bee
Occlusio sonora
en-US
θdental · fricative
think, bath
Frictio dentalis
L2 risk
ðdental · fricative
this, father
Frictio sonora
L2 risk
ɾalveolar · tap
water, better
Tactus alveolaris
L2 risk
ɫvelar · lateral
cool, fill
Latus obscurus
L2 risk
ɹpost-alveolar
red, arrow
Approximantis rhoticus
en-US
ʃpalatal · fricative
she, crush
Frictio palatalis
en-US
ælow · front vowel
cat, bat
Vocalis aperta
L2 risk
ɚrhotic · schwa
butter, mother
Schwa rhotacisata
L2 risk
əmid · central
ago, sofa
Vocalis pigra
core
ʌopen-mid · back
cup, mud
Vocalis aperta posterior
en-US
“After a month my daughter stopped saying mama, the T’s wrong again. The T is right, now.”
— H., Seoul → Toronto · cohort 02

Begin, slowly.

Enter the study