How to Improve Our Pronunciation.

We are regularly told that speaking clearly and comprehensibly is vital to being understood, but how can we improve our pronunciation??This article takes you through 5 practical tips to help you better your English pronunciation.?This is not about getting rid of an accent, or trying to sound like a native-speaker.?Although I realise this is the goal for some, the main aim of this article is to give you some pointers of activities you can do in order to be better understood by those you are communicating with.

To start with we need to be aware of the differences between your own language and English sounds.?There are often the same letters and similar looking words, but this does not mean they sound the same.?Understanding how the sounds differ can help us first of all notice the variation, and then produce these alternative sounds too.?Comprehending that a short /?/ and a long /i:/ actually exists and being able to hear and see the difference between them can lead to us making these two distinct sounds more easily.?(FYI the long /i:/ sound requires a much wider mouth shape than the shorter /?/, more like a smile ??)

When listening to podcasts, TED Talks, or watching series on Netflix, in English, active listening needs to take place in order to actually improve.?As you listen, when you hear a sentence you like the sound of, pause the audio or video, play the sentence again and copy the sentence out loud.?Watch the shapes the speaker makes with their mouth and their face, these expressions will help you in reproducing the sounds.?This is a great way to move closer to a certain accent too; if you want to sound more American, more British, or more Australian you can choose people from certain areas to listen to and copy their speech.?Be aware that within each country you can find a huge variety of accents.?According to the GB Magazine, in the UK alone there are somewhere between 20 and 40 unique accents!?I know that many non-native speakers of English may strive for the Queen’s English, however, this really is an accent in decline, with less than 3% of the British population speaking this way.

One practical tip that I have found invaluable, for myself learning other languages as well as for my students learning English, is to use a phone to record short sections of speech.?When listening back to the recording it is easy to hear what sounds clear and which parts need reviewing.?When copying a short audio clip, being able to make a comparison between the two recordings can be very insightful and could help us understand which aspects of pronunciation we need to focus on.?

Alternatively, a fun thing to try can be to use your phone’s dictation tool in English, this can give you real feedback as to how comprehensible you are.?You could even set your phone’s language to English and use your voice to search online.?You can see which sounds cause issues for the app and this in turn can help you target your pronunciation practice.

Another key factor to having good pronunciation is understanding how connected speech works.?The difference between individual words and words spoken in a sentence can be huge, for instance, “Do you like ice cream?” Could be pronounced / ?? la?k ?a?skri:m/. Once you realise how words and sounds change in fluent speech, it can make it much easier to both comprehend fast speakers and make yourself comprehensible.

Finally, the best way to improve your pronunciation is to practise regularly and try not to worry if it takes some time – these things do take time to change, especially when we have learnt how to do things a certain way!?Practicing can be with friends, your colleagues, classmates, your family, pets or even just talking to yourself.?But to practise your pronunciation you need to do it out loud, everyone sounds perfect in their head ?? have fun!