- Hi, I'm Gabby from gonaturalenglish.com
where you can learn English fluency
and confident communication.
(upbeat music) (vocalizing)
At the end of this video
I'm going to tell you how you can learn more
with me at gonaturalenglish.com
but right now I want to share a lesson with you
on how you can learn how to pronounce
words in English immediately
the first time that you see a new vocabulary word.
The problem is that you probably read
a lot in English.
A lot of people learn English by reading textbooks
or maybe reading what your teacher wrote on the board
or maybe you had handouts.
In any case, a lot of people are more comfortable
with reading in English than speaking
because when you see a word in print,
it's easy to read and you can relate that word in print
to the meaning but if you're not used to listening
to English it's not always clear
how you pronounce the word
because the way words are spelled
and the way that they're pronounced in English
are often very different and misleading.
Have you ever seen a word in English
and you haven't been sure how to say it?
Tell me in the comments.
What do you think are the most difficult words
in English to pronounce?
I would love to hear from you.
So words are often spelled very differently
than they sound in English.
That's a fact, a very well known fact
that you are definitely familiar with.
So the question is, how can we learn
how to pronounce the words
in an easy, effective way?
I'm gonna share steps with you
on how you can do this.
It's important to understand how to pronounce words
because what a lot of people do
is they just avoid using the words
that they don't know how to say
but this doesn't help you build your vocabulary,
it doesn't help you be a better communicator
and it doesn't help you become more fluent in English.
So I know what it's like.
I've done the same thing
because I'm learning Portuguese
and sometimes when I don't know
how to pronounce a word,
even though I know the word,
I know what it means,
I still have avoided using it
because I wasn't confident
on how to pronounce it.
I strongly recommend that as you learn new words
and how to pronounce them
that you use this tool
that I call C-R-U or CRU
which is Connect, Repeat, and Use.
This is a Go Natural English method
to help you with pronunciation and memorizing vocabulary
and your fluency in English.
So again, connect the word with a sound
or a concept or an idea or another word
that you already know to make it easier to remember.
Repeat it and use it.
So how can you repeat it?
Well, we need to take notes
on how the word sounds and its definition
and how we could use it.
So it's important that you have a vocabulary notebook.
It could be a paper notebook.
It could be on your smartphone.
I like to take notes in Google Keep
but I also am old school
and I like to write in a paper notebook as well.
So make sure you have whatever works best for you,
digital or hard copy.
Make sure you have a notebook.
And finally, use!
The most important step here is that you need
to use a word as soon
as you learn the correct pronunciation.
Make sure that you repeat the word out loud.
First, you listen to the word
then you use it.
You have to say the word out loud
and the best way to say it out loud is with feeling,
like you mean it.
So even if it's a simple word,
let's take the word gumption, for example,
which is a fun sounding word.
I really like it.
Say it with feeling.
Not just gumption.
I'm just repeating the word because I'm studying.
But gumption!
Yes, with feeling!
Gumption actually means with resilience
or with effort so it makes sense
to repeat it in this way.
You've got gumption!
Yes, excellent.
So back to how to learn how to pronounce a word in English.
Really, the best resource
that we have nowadays is technology.
It's changed language learning and everything around us
and Google is a great resource.
If you just Google a new vocabulary word
most of the time the first result
will be not only the definition
but the audio of how to say the word.
Just double check that you're hearing
the American accent version if you're looking
in an audio dictionary
because you may hear different audios
if you're using, for example, the Oxford Dictionary Online.
It's totally fine with me
if you're learning British English
but just a reminder, I teach American English
and sometimes it can be confusing
if you're learning different varieties
of English at the same time
so I encourage you to choose one variety
and go with it.
But this lesson is not specifically
about American English or British English.
It's about how to learn how to pronounce a word in English.
So your first step should be to consult Google
or an online dictionary with audio.
You could also ask a fluent or native speaker of English
and they should be able to help you with a lot of words,
however keep in mind that if you're asking
about a very specific, technical,
or academically advanced word,
not all native speakers automatically know how
to pronounce any word.
So for those kind of specific, technical,
academic words you might just want
to go straight to an online dictionary.
So remember, don't avoid saying new words.
Find out how to pronounce them and then use them.
The first step in improving your pronunciation
is to understand that words in English
sound very different than the way that they're written.
The second step is to consult
an online dictionary with audio.
The third step is to use your English learning notebook
to take notes on the word, the definition,
how it sounds to you,
and how you might use it in a sentence.
Online dictionaries will give you examples.
The most important key here for pronunciation
is to write down how the word sounds to you,
the way that you hear it
and the way that it would make sense to spell it
if you could create the spelling of the word.
This will help you to review the pronunciation later.
It's also very important to mark the stressed syllable.
In language classes, I often get frustrated
when a teacher just tells me to just learn it
or just memorize it.
That's why I want to share strategies
and techniques with you to help you to memorize
because it's not always so easy or automatic
to just remember something the first time you hear it.
So that's why I mention the Go Natural English CRU method,
Connect, Repeat, and Use.
Another way that you can connect words in your journal
is to group new words by the sounds that they have in them.
So, for example, the word gumption.
We could group this with other words
that end in T-I-O-N like function or nation.
This could help us remember
that the T-I-O-N sounds like shun.
You could also do this with shorter words
and group them by vowel sound
so if you have trouble pronouncing the word said
which is a difficult word for many English learners.
They often make the mistake
of pronouncing both vowels separately like sayeed.
You could group this word, said,
with other similar vowel sounds like bed,
fed, wed, and said.
To improve your pronunciation,
it's very important to expose yourself to more English
so this means listening to more English.
You could listen to more podcasts,
more YouTube videos, listen to the news in English.
I recommend that you listen
to more Go Natural English videos
and there's also a Go Natural English podcast.
You can slow down videos on YouTube and in podcasts
or speed them up if you're ready for a challenge.
When you listen to more English,
it will definitely help you
to become more familiar with the sounds in English
and you may hear words
and subconsciously remember them later.
So it's always a good idea
to listen more and have more input as we call it.
You can also listen to audiobooks.
This is a great way to learn how words react
when you put them together
because when we learn the pronunciation
of a single word, sometimes it changes
when we use that word in a sentence.
For example, let's look at a sentence with short words.
A short example, is he busy?
When I say this quickly
and naturally it sounds like izzy bizzy.
Izzy bizzy is very different than is he busy.
So these are short words
but sometimes words change
when you put them in a sentence.
Another example is diamond necklace.
It would sound like the D at the end of diamond is gone
when you say these words quickly together.
Diamon necklace.
So as I mentioned, sometimes words sound different
when they're in a sentence.
That's why it's a good idea to not only learn
the pronunciation of one word
but how that word sounds
and how you should say it
in a group of words.
So I hope that I'm not making you feel overwhelmed
by saying this.
The first step is to learn
how the individual word is pronounced
and then you can worry later
about making your phrases
and your fluency more natural.
If you're interested in learning
a lot of languages
or becoming an English teacher,
it could be really useful
for you to learn the International Phonetic Alphabet.
This is what you see in all dictionary entries
when you see visually how the word is pronounced,
not the audio entry but the funny looking letters
next to the word that you're searching.
The International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA
is a set of characters or an alphabet
that shows us exactly how the word is pronounced.
Wouldn't it be nice if English was like this?
This is why it's so great to learn the IPA
because it unlocks pronunciation in English
and any language for you.
The downside is that it can take a while to learn.
The IPA is really, like, almost like learning
a whole 'nother language
but it's very useful if you have the time and interest.
I learned the complete IPA when I was studying linguistics
during my Master's degree in teaching English
as a second language.
Listening to more English will definitely help you
to recognize patterns in pronunciation
like words that end in T-I-O-N sound like shun,
like gumption.
Another way that you can find out about patterns
is by studying etymology
and if you love linguistics and history,
learning about the roots of words,
well, that's etymology and it's super fun.
So if you want to learn more about words
and their prefixes, their suffixes,
where they come from,
this can also really help you
when you're taking tests on vocabulary.
Definitely it's a good idea to find out
about where words come from in English
because we borrow words from so many different languages.
Like, Greek for example.
When we have words like democracy
we see that demo means people in Greek.
Or you might recognize a lot of words from French in English
because there's a huge French influence.
So you'll understand how to pronounce words
like entrepreneur or connoisseur or mountaineer.
So then if you're familiar with French etymology
you'll immediately know how to pronounce words
like entrepreneur, sommelier, and connoisseur.
To summarize, Google is your friend.
Find out how to correctly pronounce new words
that you're not sure about
with Google's online dictionary with audio.
But that is not enough to help you with your fluency.
If you truly want English fluency
and you want to communicate with confidence
and stop avoiding words
then use all the techniques and strategies from this video.
If you'd like to learn more
with the Go Natural English method,
we have a complete course
that helps you with pronunciation and all English skills.
Go to gonaturalenglish.com/course.
The link is in the description right down there.
You can find out when we're opening
another session of our course
and you can pre-register for more information.
Thank you so much for watching.
Make sure that you are subscribed
by clicking right down there.
If you'd like to download my audio e-book,
The English Fluency Formula, you can click right down there
and you can watch another Go Natural English lesson
right here on YouTube by clicking right over there.
Thanks and I'll see you in another lesson soon.
Bye for now.