15 ways to improve your English pronunciation

hello my name is Emma and in today's video I am going to teach you how to be

better at pronunciation I'm going to teach you 15 ways to improve your

pronunciation so this is a very important video because I know a lot of

students are very embarrassed with their pronunciation sometimes people don't

understand what they're saying and they feel really sad about it so this video

will really help you if you've ever felt embarrassed or had trouble with your

pronunciation okay so let's get started with the first kick so my first tip is

about how we pronounce different sounds pronunciation is really about what your

lips are doing what your tongue is doing as well as what your throat is doing so

one way to improve your pronunciation is to know what is happening here okay

these are all muscles you really want to get good at using these and knowing how

to use them for what sounds okay so you want to be aware you want to be aware of

what this area is doing so let me give you an example your lips for some sounds

your lips are very spread okay very spread and tense so I want you to try

something I have this word here beak II so you see with the e sound in the

center beep it makes me smile okay so that's what my lips are doing they're

smiling when I say this word beat it's the same with a word cheese when we take

a picture okay your lips spread out now I want you to compare this with the word

boat okay i have a very canadian pronunciation for those sound boat but

when I say the word boat look at what my lips are doing boat okay are they very

spread like a smile no they're actually in a circle boat okay so it's important

to know what your lips are doing are they spread

or are they in a circle are your lips are they like coming out like a wolf

would like ooh or are they not are they if are they black so think about what

your lips are doing when you're pronouncing different words and

different sounds ok the next thing is your time this is your time ok so what's

very important in pronunciation is where is your time ok so when you pronounce a

sound is your tongue at the front of your mouth ok is it at the front or is

it at the back of your mouth or sometimes it might be in the middle so

paying attention to where your tongue is can really help you when you're

practicing these be found also your throat this is your throat ok for some

sounds I the sound mix your throat move it vibrates for other sounds you won't

feel anything this does not move the sound actually comes from your mouth so

let me give you an example we have a sound here as in tea and we have the

sound here duh as in David ok so and now if we compare these two sounds you'll

notice t if I say here does not move there's no vibration whereas if I just

pronounce this sound duh duh this area does move ok so that's very important in

pronunciation especially with ed endings when you're learning about the past

tense knowing if this is moving or not moving is very very important ok so

again things to be focused on when you're trying to practice a sound you

should be focused on what your lips are doing what your tongue is doing and what

your throat is doing ok so my second tip the mirror

okay you don't want to really be focused on this while you're actually talking to

somebody in public because that can be a little bit embarrassing okay so if

you're practicing sound maybe somebody might look at you and think you're a

little bit crazy so this is something good to do at home and it's good to look

in the mirror and look actually at what your lips are doing what your tongue is

doing and you know do some practice to practice different different words and

see what your mouth is doing with each word you can also look at other people

and try to pay attention to what their mouths are doing when they're saying

these words also okay so great way to practice is looking in the mirror

another thing you can do for practice is actually have a tape recorder or your

cell phone and record yourself okay so you can say a sound you can say a word

and you can film yourself saying the word because one problem a lot of

students have is they make mistakes in their pronunciation but they don't know

they're making mistakes they can't hear it when they're actually saying it but

when they record it you can go back and you can actually maybe here the mistakes

or making okay so it's very good to listen to how you sound by recording

yourself another helpful thing you can do is actually with your cell phone okay

so on your phones a lot of people have voice texting where instead of texting

with your hand you actually can just say what you want to say and the text will

show up so if you have a phone that has this for texting it's a great way to

actually see that you're actually saying words correctly because for example if I

say the word dog and it shows up as duck then I know okay I didn't pronounce that

word correctly so your phone can actually be great wait a great way to

check that you're pronouncing things correctly also some students use Siri

you know they ask Siri a question Siri where is the closest bakery if Syria has

no idea what you're saying then that feedback but its ear if series able to

tell you oh the nearest bakery is you know two blocks away then you know okay

my pronunciation for that question was really good so using your phone can

really help you with your pronunciation okay so another key idea for improving

your pronunciation is number five learning the International phonetic

alphabet so phonetic means about sounds okay so International phonetic alphabet

really means the International sound alphabet so if you've ever looked in

your dictionary and you kind of see sometimes a you'll see bracket in your

dictionary beside the word and it has you know maybe the word for example B

and if you look in the dictionary it says the word like this this would be

the International phonetic alphabet it's showing you not how the word is spelt

not how to spell the word but how to pronounce the word so this alphabet will

teach you how to pronounce a found or a word so it's very very useful to learn

so for example this word here B this is in regular english writing ok d ee be

but if we wanted to know how this is written in the sound alphabet or the

International phonetic alphabet you would see the word written as this but

and this is actually II in the international phonetic alphabet so

together I would know the sound is be okay so really great because in English

spelling is always a problem with students sometimes the spelling does not

tell you how to pronounce the word so if you find that really frustrating and

difficult learning the International phonetic alphabet can really help you

with your pronunciation okay another thing that can really help you is

comparing okay comparing different sounds or different words so sometimes

you know for example you'll have a word with a e sound like sheet you see I

smile with that and then you'll have a bad word like the word shit so for this

example comparing the two words and seeing how to actually what's different

sheet shit you see the difference in my mouth comparing two words side-by-side

can really really help you with your pronunciation okay another thing that

can really help is number seven stress okay when we talk about stress in

pronunciation we're not talking about like you know stress from doing a math

test or something stress and pronunciation means louder and longer

okay it's when we say a word and a part of the word we say louder and longer so

I'll give you an example on how stress can help I have here two numbers 1330

okay when many students say numbers people don't understand what they're

saying if you say 13 somebody might think you're actually saying 30 okay so

this is a common thing that happens to students stress is the way to improve

this if you know where to say the the part of the word louder and longer

people will understand you better so for example 13 teen is louder and longer

third is actually shorter 13 now compare this to 30 okay in this case sir is

louder and longer and t is actually quite short okay so I want you to repeat

after me 1330 okay you see the difference there so learning stress can

really really help you improve your pronunciation

now let's learn some more tips so my 82 tip number eight is about intonation you

should definitely pay attention and learn intonation so what is intonation

well that's like the music of language different languages have their own type

of music to them and so in English it has its own music too so if you think

about this this really means about when parts of what you're saying your

sentence when it goes up at the end like mine just aired it went up or when it

goes down okay so that's the intonation so for example I have here a question

was it expensive did my voice go up or did it go down at the end I want you to

think about it was it expensive alright if you said my voice it rose it went up

you're correct so you'll notice that different sentences different types of

questions you know different types of sentences have different intonation so

that's something to really pay attention to okay another thing that can really

help improve your pronunciation is contractions so what is a contraction

well a contraction is when we short in two words into pretty much one word with

apostrophe ok so for example i am i am emma right i am well oftentimes in

conversation we we often instead of saying i am will say im so we'll use the

contraction ok so we have IM compared to I'm and we just have this ' another

example of a contraction is he will become hill and I've drawn a little Hill

here with a man on top to remind you so he will is shortened to hill there are

many contractions in English and they will really really help you in terms of

your conversation and they're very good for pronunciation

too okay oh there's one more F scotch this one I really liked this tip sing

even if you have a terrible voice I actually am terrible I'm awful terrible

at singing hopefully you'll have a better voice than me but even if you

don't singing can really help you with your pronunciation it can help with

intonation it can help with stress there's a lot of great songs to sing and

also often when you sing it makes you relax okay so if you're really nervous

about your pronunciation have fun sing a song and that can help you with it also

a lot of students asked me are there any bands or any singers I would recommend

for practicing singing in english i would say my top two wood and of course

anyone you want to practice you is great any band you like you should definitely

sing too but for me personally I really like Frank Sinatra and the beatles and

the reason why is basing slower okay a lot of new music the singer sings very

fast and so it's difficult to hear what they're saying with the Beatles and with

Frank Sinatra their voice is usually quite clear and they sing slower so I

find that it's a you know really great band and singer to sing too so I highly

recommend practicing your singing in order to improve your pronunciation ok

another tip that can really really help you is tiny twisters ok what's a tongue

twister you probably have something similar in your language I'll give you

an example of an English tongue twister to kind of show you what I mean she

sells seashells by the seashore ok from what I just say I said something very

fast a tongue twister is to help you with usually two or three different

sounds so in this case the sounds I was looking at was and

so oh she sells seashells by the seashore is a way to get me practicing

these two sounds so at first what I would do with a tongue twister is start

very slowly she sells seashells by the seashore and then after you practice a

bit you can go a little bit faster she sells seashells by the seashore until

finally you can go really fast and really fast she sells seashells by the

seashore okay so tongue twisters are a lot of fun and we have them for many

different sounds in English we have Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

peppers okay we have there's a bunch of different ones if you google tongue

twisters you'll find a bunch and these are great for practicing different

sounds you can even have a competition with your friends see who is the best

with these tongue twisters who can say them the fastest and correctly okay

another great tip when you're trying to improve your pronunciation is when you

learn a word or a sound try to think if there's the same sound in your language

okay I remember when I was learning French there was the sound s and I for

some reason I was having a lot of difficulty with it I couldn't figure out

how to pronounce it when i was looking at french words then i found out that we

have the exact same sound in English for example in the word met at so the word

exert the sound is in French and English so once I knew that it existed in both

languages I was able to find an example of an English word and then whenever I

would try to pronounce a French word with that sound I remember the English

word and it would help me with the pronunciation so for example in French

the word for party is set or a bet and that runs with the English word net so

it's good if you can think about any sounds in your language that also exists

in English you can also think about sounds that

don't exist in many languages are doesn't exist and L doesn't exist or

maybe there's one sound that is both r and l whereas been english we have two

different sounds okay so try to come up with what are the things that are the

same in your language and what are some of the differences and you know you can

definitely practice those okay number 13 feedback feedback from friends okay if

you have any friends who are native speakers of English or even just you

know your friends who are also learning English you can ask them for help with

your pronunciation sometimes you know especially if you know people from

different cultures different people from different countries have different

pronunciation problems in English okay so you might have trouble with our and

maybe your friend has trouble with you know the S sound in English so you guys

can come together and you can practice and give feedback help each other out on

the sound okay if you know a native speaker of English you can do the same

thing you can ask them did i pronounce that correctly did I make a mistake and

you know hopefully they can help you with that also so using your friends is

something that i would highly recommend to do number 14 probably the most

important tip I have for you today is practice practice practice practice in

English we say practice makes perfect and that's very true for pronunciation

it's very important to practice the sound as much as possible until it

becomes automatic okay the more you practice the easier it will get so

definitely practice as much as you can but also i would recommend I've told

students about this before you know practice as much as possible and I had

one student who would practice on the subway and everybody would look at him

like he was crazy because he would sit down and he would just keep repeating

the sound again and again and again and then people wouldn't want to sit beside

him because you know there he was a bit crazy so be aware of your

surroundings when you practice again I highly recommend practicing at home in

front of a mirror if you're you know repeating the sound again and again

finally my final tip there are some really great websites you can check out

for pronunciation help if you want to practice the international phonetic

alphabet which I mentioned earlier the University of Iowa has a really really

good website where it shows what your tongue is doing what your lips are doing

and you can actually see a diagram of the mouth and you can kind of watch it

in slow motion so it's a very very good website if you're interested in American

Standard English another great website is in vid all right at w WM vidcom there

you can actually take a quiz to see that you know you've mastered these different

tips and you can also check out a lot of our other pronunciation videos we have

pronunciate pronunciation videos on everything so i highly recommend coming

there to our website to check it out until next time take care and good luck