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Improving your pronunciation skills will help you succeed on your communication skills in two ways: You will improve your understanding of spoken English and do better on the tasks that involve listening, and you will improve the clarity and comprehensibility of your own speech and perform better on the Speaking tasks.
In order to improve your pronunciation skills, you should focus on three different areas of English pronunciation: individual speech sounds, stress and rhythm, and intonation. Some useful background information about these aspects of English pronunciation is given here.
⬜ Individual speech sounds
⬜ Individual speech sounds
English spelling can be confusing because it does not always indicate how a word is pronounced. Some letters can be pronounced in more than one way. For example, the letter c can sound like the letter k, as in the word carrot, or the letter s, as in the word decide.
Also, different letters can be pronounced in the same way. For example, the sound /ʃ/ can be spelled in many different ways. All of the following words have the /ʃ/ sound: short, mustache, patience, ocean, and sure.
Because English spelling is misleading, it is useful for you to learn the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). This alphabet uses a different symbol for every speech sound that is made.
There are several advantages to learning the IPA symbols for English:
✅ You will know how to pronounce words you see in the dictionary.
✅ You will recognize words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently.
✅ You will recognize words that are spelled differently but pronounced the same.
✅ You will be able to practice the pronunciation as well as the meanings of vocabulary words you are trying to learn.
✅ You will be able to improve your pronunciation.
⬜ Stress and rhythm
⬜ Stress and rhythm
In English, every word has its own stress pattern or rhythm. Some syllables are given more emphasis, meaning that they are longer and stronger than others. Other syllables are reduced, or shortened. When you learn English words, it is important to learn their stress pattern as well as the individual sounds of the word. Pronouncing a word with the wrong stress pattern makes it much more difficult for listeners to understand you. For more information about stress and rhythm, see PRACTICE WITH PRONUNCIATION Stress Patterns, and Rhythm Patterns.
⬜ Intonation
⬜ Intonation
Intonation refers to the melody or pitch line of a spoken utterance. Speakers of English use intonation to add an extra layer of meaning. Intonation points to the most important word in a sentence, indicates whether a sentence is a question or a statement, and tells the listener when a speaker is finished. It also helps to communicate a speaker's mood and purpose.
For more information about intonation patterns, see PRACTICE WITH PRONUNCIATION Intonation Patterns.The Alphabet and the English Language
The Alphabet and the English Language
There are 26 letters in the English alphabet but there are many more sounds in the English language. This means that the number of sounds in a word is not always the same as the number of letters.
The word cat has 3 letters and 3 sounds.
The word catch has 5 letters and 3 sounds.
See how many sounds they have using sound symbols
cat is written - k æ t
catch is written - k æ ʧ
In catch the three letters tch are one sound represented by one symbol ʧ
Intonation in questions
Intonation in questions
Yes/No questions usually have rising intonation. ⤴
Wh-questions usually have falling intonation. ⤵
Do you like veggies?
What kind of veggies do you eat?
Do you like pop music?
What kind of music do you like?
Do you like TV?
Do you like video games?
Do you play a musical instrument?
What shoes do you like?
What games do you like?
What instrument do you play?
RuiEnglish® Cambridge University PressCategory EducationLicense Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
Building Skills
S05 Focusing on intonation Building Skills
📊 Focusing on intonation Read the passage as you listen to it. Mark the passage to show the overall intonation patterns.
✉ ingles@Live.com EnglishLiveClub.com English Live Club® English conversation meetings to help you improve your English fluency. #ruienglishlive #theenglishliveclub RuiEnglish © Cambridge University Press Cambridge Preparation for The TOEFL Test Jolene Gear, Robert GearCategory EducationLicense Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
START ▶ (man) Professor Cline?
(woman) Yes?
(man) I'm Robert Daley. The work-study office sent me.
(woman) Oh, I've been waiting for them to send someone. Did you say your name was Robert!
(man) Yes.
(woman) What's your major, Robert?
(man) Zoology.
(woman) Good. You have some science background then. Let me show you what we're doing in our lab.
(man) Will I be working in the biology lab?
(woman) Yes. We're studying the speed of reproduction of paramecia. Uh, paramecia are the most complex single-celled organisms.
(man) Oh, that sounds interesting.
(woman) Well, what we need you to do is probably not so interesting.
(man) And what is that?
(woman) We'll need you to come in every day at the same time and count the paramecia.
(man) Count paramecia?
(woman) Yes. It's very important to keep an accurate count and fill the numbers in on a form. I'll show you where the forms are and explain how to complete it later. After you have completed the form, you need to give it to Nancy. She's the woman that you met in the lab office. She'll feed your numbers into the computer for our statistical analysis. Right now; though, I want to introduce you to the other members of our team so that we can arrange a convenient time for you to come in.
STOP ▉
For further practice, listen to the passage again and try to reproduce the speech patterns.✉ ingles@Live.com EnglishLiveClub.com English Live Club® English conversation meetings to help you improve your English fluency. #ruienglishlive #theenglishliveclub RuiEnglish © Cambridge University Press Cambridge Preparation for The TOEFL Test Jolene Gear, Robert GearCategory EducationLicense Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
Bonus
CAN and CAN'TCan't and shouldn't 1Compound nouns 0Consonant clusters 2Contrastive stress 3Contrastive stress in responses 1Contrastive stress in responses 2Emphatic stress 2GamesIntonation in complex sentences 3Intonation in questions 1Intonation in questions of choice 3Intonation in statements with time phrases 2Intonation in tag questions 3Intonation with direct address 1Linked sound with /w/ and /y/ 2Linked sounds 0Linked sounds 1Linked sounds 1Linked sounds 3Listen to the sound of EnglishNegative contractions 0Pitch 2Plural -s endings 0Questions of choice 1Quiz 01Reduced words 3Reduction in past models 3Reduction of auxiliary verbs 3Reduction of COULD YOU and WOULD YOU 1Reduction of DID YOU 1Reduction of DO 0Reduction of GOING TOBonus
Reduction of HAD and WOULD 2Reduction of HAVE 2Reduction of HAVE and BEEN 3Reduction of THERE IS / THERE ARE 1Reduction of TO 1Reduction of WANT TO and HAVE TOReview of stress in compound nouns 3Rising and falling intonation 0Sentence intonation 0Sentence stressSentence stress 0Sentence stress 3Simple past -ed endings 0Stress and rhythm 2Stress and rhythm 3Stress in responses 1Stress in two-part verbsStress with compound nouns 3Syllable stress 0Syllable Stress 1Syllable stress 2Syllable stress 3The letter oThe letters S and SH 0Third-person singular -s endings 0Unpronounced vowels 2Unreleased and released /t/ and /d/ 2Unreleased consonants 3Used 2Vowel sounds /ou/ and /Λ/ 1Word stress in a sentence 3Words with TH
The IPA is a system for representing each phonetic sound with a symbol and we use use these symbols to transcribe the correct pronunciation of a word. In the English language, there are 44 phonetic symbols and sounds made up of vowels (short and long), dipthongs and consonant sounds. In this video, I pronounce all of the 44 sounds (actually called phonemes) and show you the corresponding symbol. On top of these standard 44 sounds, American English has a few other specific sounds which I also pronounce and briefly explain.
Mistake vs. error
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