Phonetic

Phonetics is the study of the minimal units that make up language. 

For spoken language, these are the sounds of speech-the consonants, vowels, melodies, and rhythms. 

There are three types of the study of the sounds of language.  

1. Acoustic Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of sounds. 

2. Auditory Phonetics is the study of the way listeners perceive sounds. 

3. Articulatory Phonetics  is the study of how the vocal tracts produce the sounds. 

This article will only describe articulatory phonetics.

Some speakers of English pronounce the words which and witch differently, but if you pronounce both words identically, just use w for both words. The sounds /ʌ/ and /ə/ are pronounced the same, but the former is used in stressed syllables, while the latter is used in unstressed syllables.

The production of any speech sound involves the movement of air. Air is pushed through the lungs, larynx (vocal folds) and vocal tract (the oral and nasal cavities.) Sounds produced by using air from the lungs are called pulmonic sounds. If the air is pushed out, it is called egressive. If the air is sucked in, it is called ingressive

Consonants
Consonants are produced as air from the lungs is pushed through the glottis (the opening between the vocal cords) and out the mouth. They are classified according to voicing, aspiration, nasal/oral sounds, places of articulation and manners of articulation.

Places of Articulation
Bilabial: lips together
Labiodental: lower lip against front teeth
Interdental: tongue between teeth
Alveolar: tongue near alveolar ridge on roof of mouth (in between teeth
and hard palate)
and etc

Manners of Articulation
Stop: obstruct airstream completely
Fricative: partial obstruction with friction
Affricate: stop airstream, then release
Liquids: partial obstruction, no friction
Glides: little or no obstruction, must occur with a vowel

You should practice saying the sounds of the English alphabet to see if you can identify the places of articulation in the mouth. The sounds are described by voicing, place and then manner of articulation, so the sound /j/ would be called a voiced palatal glide and the sound /s/ would be called a voiceless alveolar fricative.

Classifying the Vowels Sounds of English

The classifcation of vowels is based on four major aspects:

1.   Tongue height - according to the vertical position of the tongue (high vowels, also    referred to as close; low vowels, also referred to as open; intermediate - close-mid and open-mid)

2.   Frontness vs. backness of the tongue - according to the horizontal position of the highest part of the tongue.

3.  Lip rounding - whether the lips are rounded (O-shape) or spread (no rounding) when the sound is being made.

4.   Tenseness of the articulators - refers to the amount of muscular tension around the mouth when creating vowel sounds. Tense and lax are used to describe muscular tension.