Pronunciation

This guide is written specifically for those whose native language is Khmer.

A. Recognize the phonemes (individual sounds) that are new in English

The first step is to recognize that some sounds do not exist at all in Khmer but exist in English. These will be something new for you to learn. Some of these sounds (such as /b/, /d/, and /c/) you will likely think DO exist in Khmer, but they are different sounds.

B. Recognize the speech resolves

When a Khmer person tries to say a word that contains these new sounds, they will replace them with a predictable set of sounds that exist within Khmer. We will call these speech resolves, because the speaker has a problem with their speech (they don’t know how to make a particular sound) and they fix this problem by using the closest sound that exists within Khmer.

You can see the entire set of speech resolves below. There are 16 of them, but we also need to add in /s/ and /r/. We add these because words in Khmer are not allowed to end with the /s/ or /r/ sounds, so they are commonly dropped by Khmer people when they speak English.

C. Phoneme Placement

We now need to break up these phonemes into three sections: word-initial, word-medial, and word-final. That is, we need to separately address each sound when it’s found at the beginning of a word, in the middle of a word, and at the end of a word. The use of a phoneme is separately learned in these three placements. For example, just because a student can say the /b/ sound in “boy” does not mean that they can say the /b/ sound in “rob.”

We can see all of this charted in our phoneme checklist.

D. Practice Strategy

So, now that we know what our goal is, how can we practice to improve our pronunciation?

You will do this by reading some practice sentences and listening back to your recordings. These sentences are written specifically for our target phonemes. When you listen back to your recordings, listen carefully for any mistakes that you made. Did you use the target phoneme or did you use the resolve phoneme by mistake? Or was it somewhere in between?

Here are some very important things to note:

-You absolutely must read the sentence and be familiar with it before you try saying it. DO NOT simply read it. You should fully understand how each word is meant to be said before you open your mouth. Check with the example audio.

-DO NOT PAUSE. Do not take a pause in the middle of the sentence. Speak at a normal speed. If you fail, slow down but do not pause. If you feel that saying the sentence was easy, SAY IT FASTER. If saying it fast was easy, SAY IT EVEN FASTER. Remember to only increase the speed if you are not making any mistakes at all.

-Speak at full volume. Do not whisper or mumble. You cannot learn new phonemes by whispering or mumbling.

With that said, here’s a full step-by-step instruction of how to go about completing this type of practice:

1. Pick any 10 sentences. Make them target a variety of phonemes. Spend extra time on the phonemes that are difficult for you.

2. Read the first sentence. Listen to the audio to see how the words are meant to be pronounced.

3. Record yourself saying the first sentence in a loud, clear voice. Do not take any pauses. If you take a pause, restart the sentence.

4. Hit pause on your recorder.

5. Repeat steps 2-4 for each of the ten sentences.

6. Listen to the recording. Make a note of anywhere you made a mistake. Is the phoneme completely English-sounding, or is it somewhere in between English in Khmer? We want it to be totally English-sounding.

7. Repeat steps 3-6 two more times. If you are confident in your ability, increase your speaking speed to the point that it becomes difficult, and you begin making mistakes.

Do this once a week. It’s okay if you repeat the same sentences. You can use them more than one time. Pay attention to which sounds you are successful with and which you are not. Remember that you need to be successful at saying the phoneme at the beginning, middle, and end of words – not just the beginning. Spend most of your time on the phonemes that are difficult for you, but occasionally throw in a sentence or two with the ones you think you are great at as well.

If you practice with great focus once a week for 15 minutes, you should master the phonemes within 3-4 months. At that point, your pronunciation will be perfect, but you may sound a bit like a robot to native speakers. Don’t worry about this. Learning how to make your speech sound more natural is something that will happen slowly over time without you even realizing it. You don’t need to dedicate any time practicing it – just focus on the phonemes, and then move onto other things in life, knowing that you sound great ;)