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Do some exercise! Different languages have different sounds, and our mouths adapt to those sounds. It's a great resource for checking how new words sound.ĥ.
HOW TO PRONOUNCE HOW TO
A particularly good one is howjsay - even the name of this website is a useful guide as to how to pronounce the common question 'How do you say.?' in a natural way. As well as printed dictionaries which will give you a phonetic transcription of a word, there are lots of online dictionaries where you can click and listen to the word being spoken. This can help you to hear differences between similar sounds.Ĥ.
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You can click on the different phonemes and listen to how they sound.
HOW TO PRONOUNCE DOWNLOAD
Take a look at the British Council's phonemic chart (see link above) or download the Sounds Right app. It would be impossible to guess how to say those words without some help. Think about the letters 'ough' in the words 'though', 'through', 'tough', 'ought'. This is really helpful with English because as we have already seen, English spelling doesn't always correspond with its pronunciation.
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All dictionaries have a phonetic transcription of words so that you know how to pronounce them. It might look strange and it might feel like you are learning a whole new language, but it can really help you with pronunciation. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a visual representation of different sounds. Listen back and make a note of any sounds that you have problems with - practice these words / sounds slowly and then record yourself again. Once you have practiced shadowing, you could record yourself speaking - either repeating a short phrase that you have listened to, or doing a longer speaking task from a coursebook, like describing a picture. Shadowing means listening to a short sentence or phrase, and then repeating it afterwards, trying to imitate the sounds, intonation and word stress and noticing how your mouth and tongue move when you speak.Ģ. Try to notice the intonation that people use. There are lots of ways to do this - watch a film in its original version, listen to podcasts about a topic that interests you in English (you could try the British Council English podcasts app here), even listening to music can help. In fact, many native speakers love hearing English spoken with a Spanish, Italian or French accent! So, how can you work on your pronunciation so that people from all over the world can understand you easily, even if you retain your native accent? Here are six top tips for you to practice and perfect your pronunciation.ġ - Listen! Listening to examples of authentic speech is the most obvious way to improve your own pronunciation. Good pronunciation means being understood not necessarily sounding like you were born in New York or London. When you are learning English you don't have to sound British or American. In the UK, the USA and other English speaking countries there are many, many different types of accents, but people with those different accents can all be considered to have correct pronunciation. All of these features contribute to good pronunciation - but don't confuse them with accent.
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But good pronunciation is not just 'how words and letters sound' there are other equally important features to consider, like intonation (how the tone of voice changes during a sentence, going up or down), stress (which words and syllables have more 'weight' when we are speaking), and connected speech - how words can sound different when they are joined together in natural speech. This makes pronunciation a real challenge for language learners. He didn't enjoy wearing smart clothes, and when he wore them he felt a subtle difference in his personality.''Įnglish spelling hasn't evolved much over time, but how we pronounce words has. "The man didn't feel very comfortable in his grey suit. Take a look at this sentence, focusing on the words in bold - do you know how to pronounce them? Any English language learner knows that often spelling isn’t very helpful if we want to know how to correctly say a word.