Hello, my name is Jackie and I teach English with TakeLessons. In this video
we'll talk about several ways to improve your pronunciation and sound more
natural when speaking English. You'll learn the rules for consonants and we'll
discuss the most common pronunciation mistakes for beginners. So stay tuned and
don't forget to click the link below to check out our free online English
classes.
I have three recommendations for how to improve pronunciation for beginning
English learners. The first way is to practice muscle memory. This involves
moving your mouth, the muscles of your mouth, including your cheeks, your jaw, and
your tongue in the correct form for making the vowel sounds and the
consonant sounds. This way your muscles will remember, and by muscles meaning you
will remember, exactly how it should feel when you pronounce a word correctly. The
second recommendation is to practice listening to audio. That can be video,
that could be a podcast, that could be watching a movie, or a TV show, pressing
pause when you hear a word or a phrase that you would really like to practice.
Then replaying it and practicing along with the person speaking. The more you
practice the more you will remember how to pronounce the word correctly. Practice
speaking with a native English speaker - for instance you could ask your friend
to correct you when you mispronounce a word. This is really good especially if
they have the patience and they can practice pronouncing the word with you.
Basically with these recommendations, the more you practice, the more you listen to
a native American English speaker, the better you'll get with improving your
pronunciation.
Consonants are sounds that are made with the mouth closed. There are 21 consonants
however in American English pronunciation
there are 24 consonant sounds. The consonant that is consistently most
difficult for English learners is the American R. It doesn't matter if the
English learner comes from Germany, from Latin America, from France, or from East
Asia, almost everybody has difficulty with the American R. So let's learn how
to pronounce it correctly. To make this sound, the movement is entirely in the
lips. R, R. You actually round out the lips a little bit and then you kind of
push them together almost like you're gonna make a kiss but much looser in
this way. R. R. We can also look at it from the side. R. R. Okay let's
practice the word red - red red. Now let's practice the word radio. Radio radio. Now
let's practice a word that actually has two R sounds, don't be worried I know you
can do this one - referee. Referee. For words that have the R sound at the end
of the word, the "ruh" sound is actually more relaxed. Let's look at the word,
father. Father, Father. You can see my lips aren't moving quite as exaggeratedly.
Father father. Let's also look at the word car - car car.
The G consonant has two sounds - the hard G "guh" and the soft G "juh." Let's practice
the word go - go go. Now let's practice the word golf - golf
golf. I put my fingers to my vocal chords so that I can feel them vibrate, then I
know I'm making the hard G sound. Go. Golf. Soft sounds are made using one
continuing breath. The soft G sound "juh" can sometimes but not always be found
before the vowels E, I and sometimes Y. Now let's practice two words that are
spelled alike. For example there's angle and angel. Can
you hear the difference in the G sound? Angle has a hard G an angel has a soft G.
Like the G consonant, the C consonant has two sounds - the hard C "cuh" and the soft
C "suh." The hard C sounds like "cuh" or a K, "cuh." You use a short sharp breath
to make the "cuh" sound - "cuh." You actually can feel your breath maybe on your
bottom lip - "cuh." Let's try the word call - call call. Now let's try the word
candy - candy candy. The soft C sound sounds like
an S. Think of it as a snake hissing. In this case there's a clear pattern as to
when you pronounce a C consonant as a soft C. If the letter that follows a C is
an E or a Y then the C is pronounced as a soft C. Like I explained before the
soft C sounds like a snake hissing. Kind of, think of making like a smile from Joker
in Batman. Let's practice the word city - city city. Now let's practice
celebrate - celebrate celebrate. Let's try a word that has both a soft C and a hard
C. Cycle cycle cycle. Now let's try a word that has the two C consonants together,
but one is a hard C and the other one is a soft C - success success success. The Y
consonant sound "yeah" is very difficult for native Spanish speakers - yeah yeah.
The Y sound is best practiced in an exaggerated way so that you can remember
how your muscles feel when you pronounce it. So let's practice using our hands -
when you make the yuh sound your sides of your cheeks should actually cave in a
little bit. So let's try this together - yeah yeah. Can you see my fingers moving
in? Yeah yeah. So there's only a little bit of movement with your tongue when
you do that "yuh" sound. Your tongue will actually go to
the roof of your mouth and like I said before your cheeks will cave in. Let's
try this together - yeah yeah yeah. If you drop your jaw in an exaggerated way
you'll really clearly feel the difference in your mouth when you make
the "yuh" sound - yeah. Okay let's practice saying yes - yes yes yes. Now let's
practice yellow - yellow yellow yellow. Now let's practice kayak - kayak kayak kayak.
The L consonant sound is particularly difficult for English learners from East
Asia and there are two L sounds - the light L and the dark L. The light L comes
before vowels. The L sound is "luh" "luh". This actually, once you've practiced
where your tongue should go in your mouth when you pronounce this, will
become easier. The more you practice actually your tongue should go
on the roof of your mouth but behind your teeth so that you should feel the
ridge or a small bump behind your teeth. "Luh" "luh" "luh".
Your tongue can either stay inside or can come out just a little bit but
you'll definitely feel the top of the back of your teeth - "luh" "luh". Let's
practice saying like - like like. Now let's practice late. Late late. The dark L comes
after vowels. For example, let's look at the word deal. D-e-a-l. The L comes after
the E and the A. So it's a dark L. Let's try pronouncing it - deal deal. In this
case the dark L is slightly more exaggerated than the light L - "luh". Deal deal.
Consonant blends which are also called consonant clusters are a group of two or
three consonants that form together to make a distinct consonant sound.
Examples of consonant blends are GR that makes the sound "gruh." PH which makes
the sound "fuh." SH which makes the sound "shuh". TH which makes the sound "thu"
and CH which makes the sound "chu." The consonant blend that is the most
difficult for English learners is the TH consonant blend. TH actually makes two
distinct sounds. There's the voiced "thu" and unvoiced "th." The voiced "thu" sound is
found in words like - these those and father. The words - thought birthday and
month - contain the unvoiced "th" sound. To pronounce both of the TH sounds
correctly you need to actually put your tongue in between your teeth. You may
feel self-conscious when you do this however the more you practice the more
you'll remember how it's supposed to feel and then sound correctly when you
pronounce a word. Let's try the voiced TH sound first. The voiced TH sound will
actually vibrate your tongue. Let's try - the the. If you see I am actually putting
my tongue out a little bit and then not exactly clamping down but putting a
little bit of pressure with my teeth in order to vibrate my tongue and make that
"thu" sound. Let's look at this from the side - "thu" "thu". The unvoiced TH sound also
has your tongue coming out but your tongue isn't touching your teeth so you
don't make a vibration sound - "thu" "thu" "thu".
Consonant blends with R can be very difficult for English learners because
of the American R "ruh" sound. Let's look at the BR "bruh" consonant blend. In
this case that tongue doesn't move so the lips do all the work - bra bra bra bra.
The B rolls right into the R making the "buh" and the "ruh" into bra.
Practice saying that individually "buh" and "ruh" forms bra. Now let's try
pronouncing words with the BR consonant blend - breakfast breakfast "bra" breakfast.
Bring bring "bra" bring.
Syllables are how speech sounds are organized; they contain a vowel sound and
may or may not contain a consonant. One is one syllable. Lucky has two syllables.
Forever has three syllables. Emotional has four syllables. In English the
average number of syllables per word is 1.2. There are two types of syllables -
stressed and unstressed. Stressed syllables are typically longer in
duration, higher in pitch, and louder than unstressed syllables. Let's look at two
words that look similar but have two completely different meanings. The
difference is in where the stress lies. Dessert desert dessert desert.
Can you hear which syllable I'm stressing most in dessert and in desert?
Dessert desert. With most words with two syllables, the stress is in the first
syllable - water open hello. However there are exceptions to this rule. Verbs have
the second syllable stressed - occur donate. Some words are both nouns and
verbs. They're spelled exactly the same however with nouns the stress is in the
first syllable and verbs are stressed in the second syllable. Let's look at the
word present - present is a noun, present is a verb. Let's look at permit - permit is
a noun, permit is a verb. My intonation goes up when I say the verb permit. What
do you think is the hardest part of pronunciation? Leave a comment and let us
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