Master English Pronunciation (The Daily Pronunciation Plan)

Have you ever felt lost trying to improve your pronunciation?

Like, you know that you need to practice, but you don't know

what to do or where to start.

It's like going to the gym without a workout plan.

You end up wandering around trying random exercises, but not making real progress.

Well, today I'm going to show you how to build your perfect

daily pronunciation workout.

A simple structured routine that will help you to train smarter, not harder.

So, you can finally hear real improvements in the way you speak English.

Let's get started.

Now, your workout will follow 3 steps.

Step 1: the warm up.

All exercises begin with stretching, activating and warming the

muscles that you're about to use.

In your warm up you should focus on three things: breath, articulators and voice.

Step 2 is precision.

This is about ear and oral posture training.

A vital step towards improved pronunciation is hearing the

subtle differences between sounds and then feeling the differences.

Take  /æ/ and  /e/, for example, two short vowels.

You need to attune your ear to the difference in sound — /æ/, /e/,

/æ/, / e/, as well as feel how the mouth changes shape when you create

each sound / æ/, / e/, / æ/, / e/.

Here, it's tongue position mostly / æ/, / e/, / æ/, / e/.

Step 3: target sound.

I'm sure you are aware of the English sounds that you find hard to pronounce.

Well, each week I want you to choose just one sound to include in your

daily workout, just one, and then commit to mastering that sound.

Now, let's go a little deeper.

In a 10-minute workout, your warm-up step should take 2 minutes.

So, every good workout starts with good posture.

Whether you're standing or sitting.

Try to keep your spine straight, your shoulders relaxed, and feet

planted firmly on the ground.

Then you should release tension in your neck and shoulders using head rolls,

rolling gently from one side to the other.

And then shoulder rolls, rolling back and forward.

We hold so much tension in our neck and shoulders that it really

does affect the way we speak.

So, take a few seconds to roll out that tension.

Then a little breath work, keeping your shoulders relaxed.

You want to aim for big belly breaths.

Draw the breath deep down, allowing the belly to expand rather than the chest.

[Inhales]

Draw it down through your nose.

All the way down, expanding the belly, and then blow out

[Exhales]

through your mouth.

Every time that you breathe out, try to engage your abdominal muscles.

You don't need to squeeze them very tight.

You just need to engage them.

Wake them up.

Ask them to support your breath.

So, you breathe in through the nose.

[Inhales]

Big belly breath.

And blow out with engaged muscles.

[Exhales]

Do this three or four times.

Then move on to warming the articulators.

The articulators are the parts of your mouth that shape sound.

So, you want to stretch your face.

Stretching it wide scrunch it up tight.

Open your mouth wide, big smiles.

Maybe a frown, try pursing your lips a few times.

You want to release your tension you can do that by doing a

lovely massage of the jaw muscle.

Let your mouth feel drop open naturally, and shake out a

loose lower jaw if you need to.

You should try to include lip trills.

Brrrrrrr.

And if you can, do tongue circles.

At least five circles in each direction.

Or at least some tongue stretches.

Okay, so, once the articulators are engaged, then you want

to warm up the vocal folds.

This is very easy to do.

You can do it with a simple siren.

Start low, and glide up to the higher part of your range and then back down again.

Try to really glide the sound you can do it on a hum, or on an E.

You can even do it with a lip trill.

Brrrrrrr.

Just really working the range.

Okay, trying to go up as high as you can.

Low down, exploring each end of your range.

So, now your voice is ready to work.

Now, it's time to move on to step 2.

Let's train the ear and fine-tune articulation.

In this step you want to aim to cover it in around four minutes.

So, here you're going to work with articulation exercises, tongue

twisters, and minimal pairs.

There are two important points to remember during this step.

1. You are aiming for precision, not speed.

2. Repetition is your friend.

Repetition is your friend.

As an example, sticking with  /æ/ vs / e/.

. I want you to listen carefully to these minimal pairs.

Bat — Bet.

Lag — Leg.

Pan — Pen.

The words in each pair sound very similar to each other.

But did you hear the subtle shifts?

Remember, we're aiming for precision, not speed.

So, when you work on this step, slow down.

Exaggerate the words and repeat two or three times.

Bat — Bet.

Bat — Bet.

Pan — Pen.

Pan — Pen.

Include a handful of minimal pairs.

You may follow minimal pairs with some articulation exercises that cover vowel

sounds and consonant clusters like: oopt, ohpt, awpt, erpt, eept, owpt, ipt.

And of course, throw in a tongue twister.

But remember, precision, not speed.

Red leather never weathered wetter weather better.

Heather's leather, light as a feather, faced the foulest fella.

Would she let her fella test it?

Never.

Heather's clever.

The final step.

It's to focus on a target sound you want to improve.

Start with an anchor.

This is a word where you already pronounce the sound correctly.

This could even be a word from your own language that contains the same sound.

For example, if you're Spanish and you're working on the English /j/ sound, but

struggling with the tongue position, you might use the Spanish LL from "LLAMAS".

Start with this anchor and continue to revisit it in order to reset.

Llamas.

Llamas,  /j/, /j/.

Yes.

Yes.

You.

You.

Llamas.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Say each one slowly.

Then move to saying each word within a phrase or sentence.

/j/, llamas, /j/, /j/, yellow.

Yellow shoes, your yellow shoes.

I love your yellow shoes.

Now, open a book, newspaper, magazine or anything with English text on it.

Take a short passage and highlight the words with your target sounds.

Then, read the passage aloud a few times, paying close attention

to the highlighted words.

Yoghurt, milk and cheese are packed with nutrients your body needs.

Rich in calcium, they keep your bones and teeth strong.

Your muscles benefit from dairy's high-quality protein, while

vitamin D and potassium support your heart and immune system.

Whether you enjoy a creamy yoghurt, a glass of milk or a

slice of cheese, your diet gets a yummy boost with every bite, yum!

Workout complete!

Just 10 minutes a day is all you need to make real progress.

Now, if you are particularly interested in sounding British,

then join my mini course, the guide to sounding British for free.

I'll leave a link in the description for you.

And if you found this video helpful, please do take a second to give it a like.

It really makes a big difference.

And let me know in the comments, what's the hardest sound for you to pronounce?

If you have time now and you want to watch some more, then I highly

recommend getting to grips with the IPA.

I'll leave some video links in the description for you.

Until then, take very good care and goodbye.