There are many things you can do to improve your pronunciation.
And today, I want to show you how improving your intonation in English can help your pronunciation
become much better.
Hey, guys, teacher Prix here to help you talk to anyone anywhere anytime in English.
So, today I will give you my top 3 ideas to help you improve your intonation.
These ideas combined will help you get very very good results.
But remember, results take time, dedication and consistency.
But here we go, number 1, work on your word stress.
What’s that?
Guys, every word in English has a stress.
What’s this Priscila?
What’s a stress?
It is a strong syllable, a strong part.
This part is stronger than the others, ok?
Stressing, pronouncing this strong part correctly will help you not only improve pronunciation
but intonation as well.
And this is one problem I see many non-native speakers having when they are speaking words
in English.
Let’s see some words.
Plastic.
Here the stressed syllable is PLAS, plastic.
PhoTOgraphy.
It is not “pho”, it is no gra, it is “to”, photography.
Now, if you look at the word “photo”, it is “pho”, it is not “to” because
if is “to” then you would say phoTO and it is not.
PHOto.
DeCIDE.
“CIDE” is my stressed syllable.
OK, Priscila, now that I know this stressed syllable thing, how do I improve that?
Listen and repeat and you can use dictionaries Oxford Cambridge.
There are so many dictionaries online today that will show you where the stressed syllable
is and that guys is how you get closer to having a better and better pronunciation closer
to a native speaker.
Idea number 2: work on your sentence stress.
Now that you have understood the word stress, we need to analyze the sentence stress as
well.
And in English we also have ups and downs, strong and weak when we are making a sentence
and this is also a big difficulty many non-native speakers have.
So how do you analyze how to use your intonation in a sentence, in a full sentence.
Let’s see a phrase.
She bought a new dress.
Here my important words are buy and new dress.
Therefore I need to make them stronger when I am speaking to someone, when I am making
a sentence and why do I do that, because these are my content words.
And what’s a content word.
It is a word that is very important for the listener to listen, it is a key word and you
need to emphasize this word because it is important in your message.
Therefore, this word will be stronger than the other words.
The other words will be weaker and this key word will be stronger.
Now in a phrase you can have several content words, so you need to know when to go up and
when to go down.
What’s a content word?
Verbs action verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, wh questions,w ords that indicate negative,
all these words are content words.
Another example, my name is Priscila.
In this case, name and Priscila are content words.
My and verb to be are not so important in this message, therefore they are weaker.
My name, my name, my, it is not so strong, it is weak.
Now, in order for you to improve your sentence stress you need to work on your word stress,
which is my first idea.
That’s why you have to do these exercises together, combine them, work on the sentences,
work on the words individually and then on the sentences.
Idea, oops, idea number 3 shadowing.
I’ve already made a video talking about imitation, imitating native speakers, here
is the link, take a look.
But I didn’t say shadowing, I didn’t refer to it as shadowing which is basically what
shadowing is when you imitate someone.
And this, guys, will help you put into practice these two top ideas I gave you previously
word stress and sentence stress are things that native speakers do all the time when
they are speaking English, I’m doing this now.
So, for you to improve that,if you want to have a better intonation, nothing better than
imitating the people who speak English, who are native speakers.
My advice for you in this case, choose actors or actresses or people you like that speak
clearly, alright?
Because we know that there are some native speakers that do not speak so clearly, it
is not clear when they speak it is difficult to understand.
So, try to listen to native speakers that have a very clear English and these are the
people you want to imitate, these are the people you want to pay attention at, to listen
to and you will see this stress, strong weak, the pronunciation , the correct pronunciation,
the correct intonation, the correct stress in the words.
I still do this exercise, I do this exercise on a regular basis because that is how you
are going to improve your speaking techniques, your intonation and your pronunciation
So, I would like to give you an example of shadowing.
I picked a small part of an episode of a TV show I like.
I like to watch Supernatural.
I will try to imitate Dean Winchester, that’s my favorite character in this show and I will
try to imitate, to do what he is doing and this is the shadowing technique and you will
see that he stresses words some words are weaker than others and this is how you improve
and I will have to read ok because I couldn’t memorize his lines, I, if I were an actress
I would be a horrible one because I wouldn’t be able to memorize anything.
Here is the thing, uh Chuck and I mean no disrespect, ah, I’m guessing you came back
to help with the darkness and that’s great, ah, that’s you know, it is fantastic, ah
but you’ve been gone, ah, a long long time.
So, I tried to do a reasonable job, ok?
And this is basically how you do shadowing and it takes time, alright?
But the most important, my key here is work on your intonation and I’m sure you will
improve.
And to work on your intonation is not just “listen and repeat”, pay attention at
what you’re listening and what you’re repeating, alright?
Pay attention at the stressed syllable, pay attention at the content words in your sentence,
what are the key words in your phrase?
That’s how you improve your intonation.
That’s how you become a better English speaker.
I hope you like this video.
Don’t forget to click like and subscribe.
Thanks guys and I’ll see you next time.