Alan Palmer's Language Chat podcasts

Hello everybody.

Alan here. Thanks for listening to my podcast.
www.alanlancs1.podomatic.com

Today I want to talk about some of the difficulties with English pronunciation.

There are certain letters or combination of letters that are often difficult for people learning English. I want to demonstrate some of these difficulties and ways to help your pronunciation sound more English.
Firstly, I must say that I speak with a northern English accent and as such, my English pronunciation is a little bit different to London English or American English.

So let’s start with some vowel sounds. A E I O U

In English, we cannot just read word and know how it is pronounced.

Take the word “right” for example. The “righ” is pronounced like the word “rye” or the “ri” in the word “sterile”

So we must always learn the correct pronunciation from teachers, recordings or from dictionaries that use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

So, which are the most common sounds that can often be pronounced differently by people learning English, than the pronunciation used by a native English speaker?

This depends on the nationality of the person learning English I think.

Many people who speak other European languages sometimes pronounce “e” as “ee” ( as in “veeseet” instead of visit) and “a” as “eh” ( “ehpple” instead of apple) However, sometimes the sound of “e” is “ee” and the sound of “a” is “eh” as in the word “eat” and the word “any”.

For those of you who speak European languages, try saying this: “ When I visit my mother, if she has any, she always gives me an apple to eat because she says it does me good to eat fruit”

People who speak Chinese (as a native language) often mistake an “l” sound for an “r” so “right” sounds like “light” and sometimes they add another syllable to a word when there isn’t one. As in for example the words “and” which becomes sometimes “and-a” and “is” becomese “is-a”

So for those of you listening who are Chinese, try saying this:

“I know when I have the right light for reading, it is when I can see the text and the text is clear to see”

English vowels are often pronounced as diphthongs which sound like two vowels together

Bay for example is spoken like “bay-ee”
Day is spoken like “day-ee”
Go is spoken like “goh-u”
Fine is spoken like “fye-een”

Sometimes English people pronounce some words a little different to Americans:

“Stupid” (English)
“ Stupid” (American)

Take care with these sounds:

“th”

To get this sound (which I think is very difficult) is put the very tip of your tongue touching your top teeth very softly and the allow a little air out and pull your tongue back quickly.

For the other “th” sound as in: “the end” for example, just allow your voice to sound at the same time

Try saying: “the thing that I think is that their thoughts are thoroughly thought-out at the end”

“r”

To get the “r” position correct. Curl your tongue back a little and let your tongue go flat as you say a word.

Try saying this: “Roger ran after the rabbit and really regretted not reaching it”

“w”

To get the “w” sound try putting your lips to say “oo” like “food” and as you say the “w” let your jaw slightly drop – but only a little bit.

Try saying this: “when I went with my wife to Wales, we wanted to go walking but it was a wet weekend”

“v” this is sometimes difficult for Spanish speakers.

To get the “v” sound put your top teeth on your bottom lip softly say the “v” and lower your jaw slightly – but only a little bit

Try saying this: “vans are very wonderful fun vehicles”

I have put a “w” word and an ‘f” word there for you to show you the difference between “v” and”w”

Try to keep the rhythm of the speech in a similar way to English peoples’

The way to do this is to listen for the word intonation (stress) on the words and copy them.

Without intonation, here is a sentence:

“This sentence shows where we put stress on words when we speak”

With intonation

“This sentence shows where we put stress on words when we speak”

Can you hear the difference?

Finally, for this podcast, never be afraid to speak a little bit slower, because this gives you more time to say the words and think a little before you say anything. This is very useful when reading out loud.

To give you an example, which do you think sounds better?

I like to show you how to speak English better, and sometimes it is better to speak a little more slowly to make the language sound clear to listeners. It is fine, no English person should ever criticise you for doing this”

So you can try to break up the sentence a little bit….

So, I hope you find this podcast useful for your pronunication.

The important thing is never to worry about pronunciation. The most important thing is to be understood. In fact many foreign accents sound nice to English people.

Bye for now

Be good be happy