Tips on practicing pronunciation

Bookmark the following site on your computer and visit it daily to listen to pronunciation and copy the speaker's sounds as closely as you can. You will also see an animated diagram that shows you what parts of your mouth are used to make different sounds. http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#


EXERCISES

We will go over these in class, so please don't be intimidated if you cannot understand them just by reading. Frequent practice using the audiovisual pronunciation practice site (click link on left) will also be quite helpful. Be patient--you will get it!

In the meantime, get out of your comfort zone! Engage in simple, casual communication with native English speakers every single day. This can occur at your child's school, in the park, in a store, at a bus stop, at the library, while waiting to see a doctor or get a haircut, and anywhere you go.

• You will find that most sounds in English occur in your native language. (This may not be true of "th," however, so you may have to work harder on this sound, making sure the tip of your tongue is between your teeth.) For example, some Asian immigrants have trouble distinguishing "r" from "l" sounds when they read them in English, e.g., "yellow" may come out "yeh-ro." Native Spanish speakers may say "jeh-ro" or "jeh-lo." But the "l" sound and the "y" sound occur as other letters or characters in their native languages, and if they remember to make that same sound in such words when they see "l" or "y" in English, they no longer have this problem. The same solution can be applied by native Spanish speakers with English sounds such as "j" and "g." Write in your notebook or journal some of the words you think of that will help you in this way, and practice them until they are easy for you.
  

• Fricative sounds. Hold a feather in front of your lips and watch your breath move it when you pronounce the fricative sounds b, p, f, v, th, s, z, ch, zh and h. "Fricative" sounds continue as long as air is coming out of your lungs.

• Voiced sounds. Hold two fingers against your throat to feel the vibration of your vocal cords when you pronounce the voiced sounds b, d, dg (as in bridge), g, j, l, m, n, ng (as in ring), r, th (as in those [thoz], not in this), v, w, z and zh. When the vocal cords vibrate, the sound is called "voiced."

• Articulation. Hold a mirror in front of your lips to see if you articulate words in the same manner as the actor in the video on the Iowa website. "Articulate" refers to where the sound is made and how the airflow is affected.

• Record your voice. If you don't have a recorder, leave yourself voice mails. Play it back repeatedly, comparing how you sound with the speaker on this website.

• Practice the most common sounds. Spend a lot of time practicing the "i" in "it, in, win, with, give, fish" and similar words. To mispronounce one of the most common vowel sounds in English can be very confusing to your listeners. This short "i" sound does NOT rhyme with the "i" in "ring." English has relatively few words in which "i" sounds like "ee" as it does in "ring." Examples of the right way and wrong way to pronounce this sound are:
  

bit, not beat or beet
fit, not feat or feet
hit, not heat
it, not eat
mitt, not meat or meet
nit, not neat
pit, not peat
sit, not seat

• Speak slowly, and carefully pronounce the final consonant in each syllable and word. Example: "The worD breaD is (iz) SHorT and has (haz) only THree leT-ters (turz)." If you do not do this, your words can run together and be impossible to understand. You will notice, however, that native English speakers often omit some of these final consonants. You will be able to do this, too, once you have mastered rhythm and other English language patterns, just as you do in your native language.
  

• Practice "th" with a mirror. When you say a word with "th" in it, the tip of your tongue must be between your teeth. Practice saying and listening to these words: "teeth, that, those, with, three, there, throw, feather, weather." You can feel your breath come out of your mouth with more force than when you say "t" and "d" because your tongue stops the flow of air of these consonants.

• Practice "t." When you say "t," the tip of your tongue touches the alveolar ridge, which is on the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth: "today, tall, two, tough (tuf), tone (tohn), tobacco, twist, tear (tehr or teer)," and so on.

• Practice "d." When you say "d," the tip of your tongue curls to touch a farther-back part of the roof of your mouth: "Monday, doll, dew, doughnut, done (dun), drag, dairy, dear," and so on.

• Practice "y." Practice saying "yes," not "jes." Repeat other "y" words such as "yellow, young, you, yesterday, egg yolk."

• Practice using the "sh" and "ch" sounds correctly. For example: "share" and "chair" do NOT start with the same sound. "Sh" is the fricative sound you might use to tell someone to be quiet when a baby is sleeping. "Ch" is the affricative sound heard at the beginning and the end of "church," at the end of "Ouch!" and at the beginning of "choose" and "chew." You can feel more air come out of your mouth when you say "sh" than when you say "ch."
  

• Listen for and practice the two types of "s" sounds, voiceless and voiced:

voiceless "s", as in "sad" or "bus"
(a soft sound like the hiss of a snake)

voiced "s" as in "is, was, choose"
(like the "zzzzz" sound of a snore or the buzz of a bee;
touch your throat to feel the vibration from your vocal cords)

Read this rhyme aloud to practice the voiced "s" in "was":

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

PRONUNCIATION RULES FOR PAST TENSES OF VERBS

Review these pronunciation rules for past tense from the book Teaching Pronunciation by Celce-Murcia, et al.:

• When the present tense of a verb ends in "d" or "t," the past tense sounds like "ed" or "id" (as in "did," not "deed") and is a separate syllable. Examples: "chat-ted, wad-ed, add-ed, need-ed, wait-ed."

• When the verb ends in a "voiced" sound other than "d," the final "d" sounds like "d" and does not result in an extra syllable at the end of the word. Examples: "cried, grabbed (not grab-bed), moved (not mov-ed), viewed (vyood not vyoo-ed), robbed (not rob-bed)."

• When the verb ends in a "voiceless" consonant other than "t," it is pronounced as "t" and does not result in an extra syllable at the end of the word. Examples: "walked, passed, kissed, laughed, stopped" sound like "walkt, past, kist, laft, stopt."

TIPS ON THE RHYTHM OF WORDS AND SENTENCES

In any language, rhythm is very important. English is considered a musical language because of its varying pitch and pacing. Japanese, for example, shows little variation in pitch and pacing. How does your native language differ from English in its rhythm and tone (pitch)?

In 80 percent of English words, the major stress is on the first syllable. Examples: ENG-lish, BER-ry, TAX-i, REG-u-lar, SEN-tence, EI-ther, PAT-tern.

Stressed syllables occur at relatively regular intervals in sentences, often in either a 4-beat or an 8-beat pattern. Example: More im-por-tant WORDS and syl-la-bles oc-CUR at rel-a-tive-ly REG-u-lar in-ter-vals in SEN-ten-ces.

More important words and syllables are stressed while others are quickly glided over, sometimes becoming hard to hear or completely inaudible.

Clear English pronunciation requires attention to stress, articulation, pitch, intonation, pace and volume.

• Stress refers to how strongly a syllable or a word is emphasized compared to others.

• Articulation refers to how the lips, tongue and teeth are used to shape the sound.

• Pitch refers to how high (like a soprano) or low (like a bass) the sound is.

• Intonation refers to variations in pitch and rhythm.

• Pace refers to how fast or slow the language is spoken.

• Volume refers to how loud or soft the sound is.