Jamaican Patois pronunciation

Most Patois resources teach you what to say. These teach you how to make the sound — where the tongue goes, what the lips do, whether the voice is on. That is the part you cannot get from reading, and the part that makes people say you sound like you are from yard.

The lessons

• 🚪 Start ya so — how fi use dis
• 🔤 Di words linguist dem use — inna plain English
• 🗺 Yuh mouth map — di places yuh tongue haffi reach
• 👅 Di TH sound — "dis", "dat", "tink"
• ✨ Kya an Gya — di K an G wid a Y inside
• 👌 Pw an Bw — di P an B wid a W inside
• 🔇 Di R weh nuh get said
• 💨 H — drop it, or add it
• ✂️ Trimming di end a di word
• 🚂 Chr an Jr — why "tree" write chrii
• 🥁 Likl, niigl, kyangl — when T tun K
• 🎚 Di ie vowel — niem, biek, plies
• 🎚 Di uo vowel — guo, buot, stuon
• 😮 Di wide-open A — an weh LENGTH change di meaning
• ↗️ Two more glide — bwai an mout
• 🌐 Di vowel weh nuh fade — koril, hebini, fi
• 🥁 Rhythm — di one weh carry furthest
• 🎵 Di tune — pitch, question, an di likkle words
• 🧭 Sound → spelling — di whole chart pon one page
• 🔬 Di Mouth Lab — di whole ting
• ✅ Mout check — eight question

Try the Mouth Lab →
An interactive articulation animation for Jamaican Patois — type any word and watch the tongue, lips and jaw move through it, side view and front view, next to the English version for comparison.