Every first language has its own consonant inventory, and English has sounds that plenty of languages simply don’t — the “th” sounds in “think” and “this” are two of the most commonly substituted in the world, but they’re far from the only ones, and which consonants give you trouble depends entirely on your specific first language.
This lesson can’t hand you a universal list, because there isn’t one — an Italian speaker’s problem consonants are not a Mandarin speaker’s, and neither are a Gujarati speaker’s. What it can do is give you the method for finding your own.
Do this now. Go back to the recording and notes from lesson two. For any moment you flagged, isolate the specific consonant sound involved and say it alone, then in a simple word, then in a full sentence, exaggerating it slightly more than feels necessary at each stage. If nothing obvious turned up in lesson two, ask a native-English-speaking colleague which specific sound they’ve noticed you substitute or soften — most people know exactly which one it is when asked directly.
The number of consonants worth drilling for any one person is usually small, often two or three. Depth on a short list beats breadth across the whole alphabet.
