HOW TO IMPROVE ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION

        First of all, don't worry about not having a native-English accent. It's important to be able to speak clearly, so that people can understand you. However, it's almost impossible to sound exactly like a native English speaker if you are learning English as an adult in a non-English speaking country.

However, there are many things that you can do to improve your pronunciation and your speaking skills.

1. Listen to spoken English as often as possible.

Listen to how speakers pronounce various words and phrases and "model" your pronunciation on what you hear.

2. Learn the phonetic alphabet.

Use the phonetic alphabet page (at the beginning of most good dictionaries) as a guide to pronouncing new words.

3. Don't forget to learn the word stress of a new word.

        Every English word has its own stress, or intonation. For example, the word "believe" has two syllables (be and lieve), but only the second syllable is stressed. We say be'lieve and not 'be lieve. Your dictionary will show the syllable stress by an apostrophe (') before the syllable to be stressed.

Word stress is important. In fact, it is more likely that someone misunderstands you because of wrong word stress than because of the wrong pronunciation of a sound.

4. Work out which sounds cause you most problems in English.

      Depending on what your first language is, you may have problems with certain sounds. For example, French speakers have difficulties with "th"; speakers of Mandarin have difficulties with "r" or "l", and Arabic speakers have difficulties with "p" and "b".

5. Practise the sounds you find difficult.

       A useful exercise is a "minimal pair" exercise. For example, if you have difficulty distinguishing between "p" and "b", try practising pairs of words which are the same except for the sound "p" and "b":

For example, "pair" and "bear"; "pond" and "bond"; "pie" and "buy" etc.

6. Be aware of intonation and sentence stress.

       Not all words in a sentence have equal stress, and generally only the "information" words (nouns and verbs) are stressed.

For example:

'Where's the 'pen I 'gave you?

'Where's the 'red 'pen I 'gave you?


the apostrophy ( ' ) before the words pen, gave, red, show where is the stress located

7. Learn to recognise spelling patterns.


        For example, "tion" on the end of a word is pronounced "shun", while "sion" can be pronounced "zhun". There are often many ways to pronounce a particular spelling pattern, but it certainly helps to know what the variations are. For example, the pattern "ough" can be pronounced "uff" as in "enough" and "tough", or "or" as in "ought" and "bought" or "oh" as in "although" and "dough".


8. Don't rush.


      If you speak too fast, the danger is that you could skip over some words, fail to pronounce them completely, or mix them up. If you speak too slowly, you might end up sounding unnatural. But it's better to speak slowly and clearly than too quickly.

VOWEL SOUNDS

 Vowel are produced when the airstream is voiced through the vibration of the vocal cords in larynx,  and the shaped using the tongue and the lips to modify the overall shape of the mouth. The position of tongue is a useful reference point for describing the differences between vowel sounds, and these are summarised in the following diagram.

This chart represent the mouth, some vowels are produced in front, high and the lipshapes spread, it's like

the person is smiling. fro example the vowel  ( i ).

This chart shows us how y where we have to do the correctly sounds

High and Low Vowels
Linguists classify vowels by the position of the speaker's tongue in relation to the roof of the mouth. A high vowel leaves very little space between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. A low vowel seats the tongue low in the mouth, and a middle vowel is in between. The "ee" sound in "feet" is an example of a high vowel in English; the "a" in "ball" is an example of a low vowel. This is not to be confused with a vowel's high or low tone; in tonal languages, the pitch of a vowel actually changes the meaning of the word.


Back vs. Front
In linguistics, vowels are also classified by their backness, or the position of the tongue toward the front or back of the mouth. For example, English-speakers articulate certain vowels, such as the long O, with the tongue toward the back of the mouth. Other vowels, such as the "ee" sound, are made with the tongue toward the front. In English, the height and frontness of a vowel generally correlates with increased tension in the speaker's tongue.


Rounding
 The sound of a vowel depends on to what extent the speaker rounds his lips. Certain vowels in English, such as the long U and O, have a great degree of lip rounding. In English, vowels spoken with the tongue toward the back of the mouth tend to be more rounded than those spoken with the tongue toward the front. However, many languages make use of more vowel sounds than English does, and in some cases they use rounding to distinguish between two vowels of the same height or backness.


Nasalization
 When a native English speaker is said to "talk through the nose," it's usually meant as an insult or seen as the unavoidable result of having a head cold. It makes the speaker's voice sound strange, but it doesn't change the meaning of his words. In other languages, however, nasalizing a vowel sound can create an entirely different word. Languages as diverse as French and Navajo make use of nasalized vowels. In French, for example, the difference between the words for "flax" and "milk" is the nasalization of the vowel sound.
     

SONG PRONUNCIATION

      In this time i'm going to share a video with the lyrics and tre transcription, with it you can hear the pronunciation of words pronunced by a native speaker.

Reflection.- the purpose of this excerse was to sing at the same time that the native singer, it also  for me it was a very good exercise, because it helps me to improve the speed of speech, and the pronunciation of some words.

SONG TRANSCRIPTION

SONG TRANSCRIPTION

       Using the first table of consonants we can transcript a song in order to see that there are some words that don't need the vowel sound for understanding their meaning.

Here you can download the complete lyrics and the phonetical transcription

Click here for downloading

TONGUE TWISTER

         The next exercise that we did was the tong twisters, for every class we needed to know a new one, if we search in internet we can find a lot of them.

Reflection.- this excercise is very useful,because it helps me to improve the speed of speech and the pronunciation of some words. If you are one of person that want to improve your speed of speech or if do you want new challenge for improving you English you can try to practice the tongue twisters.


 Peter Piper picked a peck of peckled peppers.
A peck of pickles peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pinckled peppers,
where's the peck of pickckled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Click here for some audio examples 
more examples

In those pages you can find tong twisters with some alphabet words.