ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the production and transcription of the individual sounds in North American English (NAE). It begins with a brief review of the basic concepts of PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION so that readers who are familiar with those notions will understand how we are defining them and which sets of symbols we will be using in our discussions of CS throughout the remainder of the book. The chapter provides a brief review of these concepts rather than to teach them. While learners will often blame their lack of understanding on speed, saying that native speakers simply speak too fast, evidence indicates that their comprehension difficulties are frequently due to a lack of familiarity with how NAE speech is actually realized orally in everyday interactions.
