Learn to Improve Pronunciation and Reduce Your Accent

One of the challenging aspects of learning English is making sure that one pronounces the words as clearly as possible. This is especially challenging for American English students because we pronounce certain letters differently from English speakers in countries such as England or Australia. It’s a lot easier to master a new accent when you learn English as a child, but it can be more challenging as an adult. Still, there are many techniques you can use to improve your pronunciation.

• Counting syllables: part of speaking correctly is ensuring you are aware of how many parts a word is divided into. One way you can get used to hearing syllables is by listening to as many things as you can and see if you can break the word up correctly by using your fingers or even different objects to represent the syllables that make up a certain word.
• Learn to tell different sounds apart: some words, such as kit/cat or pen/pin can be difficult to listen to when you’re just learning or when you’re listening to someone who is speaking very fast. However, you can train your ear by using tongue twisters to teach yourself how to hear different words that sound similar. Reading aloud might also help you.
• Focus on intonation and sentence stress: English is unique in that intonation can change what a word means or make the listener think they are hearing something else. Plus, unlike languages such as French, which use accent marks to guide speakers about how to pronounce words correctly, English has few accent symbols. You can listen to different talks online or try to hum certain words instead of saying them. This will make you focus on how a word should sound. If you’re ever in doubt, you can look up individual words in the dictionary and use their phonetic spelling to guide you about when you raise or lower your voice.
• Breathing: it’s difficult to know when to breathe when you learn a new language. Different languages cause speakers to use different part of their throats or mouths in order to say something. You can try using a tissue paper exercise to see when you’re breathing when you speak English. Hold the tissue paper in front of your mouth and pronounce a variety of words. Try to notice when you puff your breath, when you pause, and see how the tissue behaves as you say something new.

As with all ESL techniques, practice makes perfect. Even if you are self-conscious, native speakers are usually nice about the fact that you’re learning, so use your new skills to talk to as many people as you can. Listen to TED talks, the radio, and music so you can have a better idea of how native speakers say something, but practice as much as possible. If you’re unable to find a group of people to talk to, you can try reading things about loud as well. Remember, you can only fail that pronunciation if you never try!

By: Landon

www.skilledbusinessenglish.com