The other day a guy asked me what's this picture about? And I said what picture? There are
no pictures over here obviously he meant pitcher pronounced as picture. Does something like
that happen to you as well? Like you're trying to say another word and people don't understand
what you're trying to say? Like for example, you say calendar instead of calendar and the
person goes like what? I didn't get you and you go like oh my English is so bad! Well,
if that's what you are facing then you're actually facing pronunciation issues. Guess
what? Knowing the right words is actually of no use if people don't understand what
you've said. The ultimate purpose of you talking in English is so that someone can understand
what you're trying to say. This means that perfecting your pronunciation is the key area
of spoken English. So here we are today and my name is Michelle and today I have got for
you sure-fire tricks that will help you improve your English pronunciation, which will, in
turn, improve your communication skills. So, if you are ready then this is the day to improve
your pronunciation skills. So let's get started.
Moving on as we all know, English is a very funny language and some words can actually
sound very similar and yet be totally different in meaning until you actually stop and listen
really carefully. Okay, say for example for new English learners, words like dairy and
diary seem to sound just the same. However, we have a difference in the pronunciation
of these two words and the difference is that of only one sound so dairy has the eh sound
and Diary has the I sound. Well, do you know there are more confusing words like these?
Like people get confused with chip and cheap, right? We all know the difference in the meaning
but when you're speaking these words it gets very hard to get the difference correct. So
if you're facing such pronunciation issues where you get confused between words, the
first thing you need to do is forget the spelling. Yes absolutely forget the spelling and the
second thing you might want to start by listening really closely to word sounds and then repeating
the sound exactly as you hear it. Okay to do this you will need to watch enough videos
on English speaking and try what is called as the shadowing technique. This technique
requires that you hear someone talk and repeat what you've heard in the exact way they've
said it. So don't forget the better you are at hearing good English the better you will
become with speaking correct pronunciation. So make sure you always listen carefully and
then repeat them using the shadowing technique that I've just shared with you.
Perfect the art of pronunciation is that you better discipline yourself to practice as
much as you can as often as you can but how do you practice without a partner? So what
do you need to do you need to find a partner yes you need to find a partner to practice
your pronunciation. When two people get together you can learn new techniques and get better
ideas of adapting the right pronunciation. Things that you probably didn't hear before
you'll get to hear and let's face it practicing with someone else can be a lot more fun than
doing it all alone, isn't it? Reading a book or watching a video all by yourself that's
good definitely some learning but how about going out there, finding someone finding a
partner who can practice with you and what if that person can even teach you? Wow! So
you find a person who can practice English with you and even teach you. Well, I have
a suggestion for you, an amazing recommendation for you. So I've been using this app lately
it's called Cambly it's a really handy functional app and what do you get here? You get real-life
native speaker partners who can talk to you and explain to you whatever doubts you have
with regard to your English language learning experience. So why don't you try and using
this app where you have native speakers from all different countries and you get a taste
of different accents like American, British Kiwi, Australian, South African and Canadian.
So I recommend that you use this Cambly up hang on let me just show it to you how to
use this app. So let me show you how I just had a conversation with a native speaker and
got my own doubts cleared. Let's see, all right guys so here I am at the home page of
my phone. I'm gonna switch on now to the Cambly app and I have some options menu, reservations,
lessons tutors, let's go to the tutors right. So I can see these tutors marked as green
they're the ones who are available to talk to me right now. So I think we could go ahead
and talk to Dustin what do you think? Let's have a word with Dustin. This is a bit about
him he has a native English speaker from the USA. Let's call him, hello hi Dustin hey how
are you? I’m well, how are you today? I'm doing great. So I'm Michelle I am calling
from India. Okay nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well, I have a question for you.
Okay can you help me with the meaning of the word mischievous and also with the pronunciation
of the word. Okay mischievous, mischievous yes mischievous, mischievous. I think you
pronounced it right. It’s just, it's kind of like uh kind of like maybe a sneaky person.
It can be kind of somebody that maybe causes trouble with people like maybe playing tricks
or playing jokes on somebody. Alright, could you give me an example with this word please?
Well you could say like a child is mischievous, maybe he is sneaking around doing something,
uh-huh or you could say you know someone has a mischievous look on their face. Right like
they're up to no good. Great I think that was really helpful thank you for your help.
Any other questions? That's all for today thank you see you another time bye- bye. Okay,
thank you. So how did you find this conversation? Wasn't it amazingly useful and a lot more
fun, I wasn't bored I was engaged in an amazing conversation with a native speaker. So why
don't you go ahead and use this and I have got for you a very special invitation code
to get 15 free minutes on this app before that you need to open the description box
and get the link to that invitation code and once you go there go clear your doubts talk
to the native speaker find a partner and don't forget to let me know in the comments how
was your experience of using the Cambly app. So let me know how you liked it and make sure
you go to the description box to get the free link all the best.
Okay, tell me when you try to speak words, which three parts of your face do you use
the most? Your mouth, your tongue and your lip movement okay. Native English speakers
put a lot of emphasis on the way their lips, their mouth and their tongue moves to make
certain sounds. So basically what I'm stressing here is that if you don't have the correct
lip, mouth and tongue movement your pronunciation will never be correct. So when you learn to
say a word I want you to pay close attention to the way your mouth is shaped and your lips
move. Okay, try this when you say what W as in watch, you round your lips, watch and when
you say variety as in v you bite your lower lip variety. Watch, now you can practice this
by pronouncing in front of a mirror or watch some native speakers talk or fluent speakers
talk and notice their mouth movements. You can have fun with it by watching your favourite
actor give an interview. Why don't you try and see if you can make the same face that
he does or she does when they pronounce the word, thank you? Do you hear them say thank
you or thank you? Well, you will be amazed at how much your pronunciation improves when
you learn to say the word with the right mouth, tongue and lip movement. Don't forget the
difference watch and variety okay.
So thank you so much let's look at the next tip.
Did you know that in English words are made up of parts?
Yes which are called syllables, okay let's not make it very complicated try
this Mi-chelle. How many parts has my name got? Okay now try this for your own name;
let's try it for a few names that I've got. Vic-tor, Me-li-ssa, Ad-am, Bob, now did you
notice that these words have different parts and my name has two parts Mi-chelle and did
you know that all the words in English have one part of the word which is stressed? Yes
and that's what you need to watch out for, the stressed syllable. If you don't know which
part of the word you have to stress your pronunciation can go haywire. For example, we started with
this word calendar, it has three syllables and it is stressed on the first syllable.
So instead of saying calendar, you will say calendar. Okay now to know how many syllables
a word has either you can clap like I clapped when I started this tip or another technique
would be to say the word while you place your hand flat under your chin like this and every
time your chin touches your hand that's one syllable right there in that word. Now let's
try with this word guarantee okay let's try to speak this word with our hand here, guarantee.
So my chin drops thrice this means that this word has three syllables and this word requires
that I stress on syllable number three. So I don't pronounce it as guarantee but I pronounced
it as guarantee yes. So make sure you understand the rules to syllable stress to know which
syllables required to be stressed. That will certainly help you get your pronunciation right.
Okay, so here I have for you two sentences. Now listen to them carefully and tell me if
you think there is a difference of meaning between the two. Okay, I love you, I love
you, mm-hmm. I guess you can identify. The second sentence means that you're particularly
talking about loving a specific person because you're stressing on I love you okay. So just
like syllables are stressed in individual words, some words are stressed in a sentence,
okay and this is the trick native speakers are very good at stressing words in a sentence
and that gives a rhythm to what they speak. For example in a sentence like, you came really
late for the party last night. Which words do you think I stressed? Well if you noticed
I stressed on the words party and really, why did I do that? Well, that's because you
usually stress on the content words which means words like nouns, adjectives and verbs
okay and you don't really stress on the prepositions or other grammatical words because they're
not important. So you stress on the words which truly carry the meaning of the sentence
but the rule of thumb is for sentence stress, you can stress any word that you feel is the
most important to convey the meaning and I would stress on words really and party for
this sentence. So listen to me again, you came really late for the party last night
and remember sentence stress affects the meaning of a sentence and it does make you sound like
a native speaker. So make sure you're careful about sentence stress whenever you’re speaking.
Now after following all these sure-fire tricks that I've told you how would you really know
that you've gotten better? Hmm... The only way to do that is to record the way you sound
as you speak okay. However I would recommend that you use a sound recorder or a camera,
that way you can hear yourself and even watch the way you say the words and remember I told
you your lip, your mouth and tongue movement, yes you should be able to see the way you
pronounce words and hear that as well. Now compare the recording to anyone else who might
say the same words or sounds or let's say take a dialogue of your favourite movie okay
and record yourself say it. Then compare it with the actual recording or the actual clip
of the movie and see how your accent and pronunciation sounds. Well, this is more like a comparable
analysis. I can guarantee you that if you work on the tips that I've discussed with
you, you won't sound very different from the original recording made in that movie. So
try this one record yourself and compare yourself to the native speaker who's speaking in that clip.
Thank you guys for staying tuned with me till the end of this video. I'm very confident
that using the tips that I've shared with you today and also by using the Cambly app
you are going to get your pronunciation of English words just like those of native speakers.
So I'll see you with some more useful lessons but before I go please like the video, subscribe
to our channel and do not forget to click on the bell icon. So thank you so much for
staying tuned take care and keep learning, keep speaking see you soon bye - bye.