Learn English Pronunciation
I remember when I was a student, how hard it was to learn French pronunciation. Getting some of the sounds of French right was difficult, especially “r” and “u” as in “tu”. French rhythm is different too, with each syllable equally stressed but with a rising tone at the end of each sentence. I learned so much by listening to French. It took some time, but I finally got it.
My students learning English are also improving their pronunciation, but slowly. We have practiced sounds, especially vowels sounds (see my first pronunciation video on “You Tube”), and now we are working on English rhythm. I have found that students who master English rhythm sound very much like native English speakers! We practice sentences such as in my third pronunciation video and recently we have started learning “tongue twisters”. I made a funny video about tongue twisters. Though funny, it seems to be useful for them. They certainly enjoy trying to repeat those funny sentences!
Now I am wondering what people around the world need to learn. Are there some sounds in English that are too difficult? I know “th” is hard for many people, and in some countries “b” and “v”, or “g” and “k”, are hard to differentiate. What other problems do you have? Please let me know - maybe I can make a video to help you!
Nafis Said,
April 27, 2008 @ 3:08 am
The problems that I have in Pronunciation in English are sentence and words stress.
This is very difficult for me to say a word or sentences with their stress.It is my weakness because in our language we do not pronunce words with their stress on first or second syllabus.For example,the word enerGetic have stress on the second syllabus but in our language we pronunce this word with no stress and all letters are expressed equally.
The other problem is a sentence stress.In a sentence, we have stress in subjects,verbs,adjectives and etc.Native people use rising and falling intonations.That is so difficult for me too and I am confused by them.
These are my difficulties in pronunciation.Thank you so much for your FANTASTIC blog.
teacherjoe Said,
April 27, 2008 @ 4:14 am
Excellent idea Nafis! In fact, I am now making a video that emphasizes learning one whole sentence PERFECTLY. I will have to add something about stress which is based on “word groups” in English. This is a big problem for many learners.
Unfortunately, I am trying some new video editing software. It’s taking a lot of time to learn, so I may not have the video up on You Tube for a few more days. Maybe I’ll put up a simple version first, then put up an improved version later.
Nafis Said,
May 1, 2008 @ 2:17 am
Dear joe,
Thank you so much for the videos.I am looking forward to seeing them all.