The 4 Secrets of PERFECT PRONUNCIATION | Sound Like a Native Speaker

Hi and welcome back.

In this lesson, I will teach you the four secrets to speak English with perfect pronunciation.

These are the same techniques that I have used to improve my own pronunciation, and

I have seen them work for many of my students as well.

So what are these four secrets?

They are sound, stress, tone and rhythm.

I will explain to you what these are and how you can master all of them to sound more like

a native speaker.

So number one is sound.

When we write a word in English, we write it using letters.

Take this word, for example – we write it with six letters.

In the same way, when we pronounce a word, we do it using sounds.

This word is pronounced /sku:l/.

You see that the written form has six letters – ‘s’, ‘c’, ‘h’, ‘o’, ‘o’,

‘l’ but the spoken form has four sounds /s/, /k/, /u:/ and /l/.

Every word in English has both consonant sounds like /g/, /l/, /t/, /s/ etc. and vowel sounds

like /a:/, /ei/, /i:/, /ʊ/ and so on.

Here’s another example: ‘women’.

This word is written with five letters and it’s spoken with five sounds, but notice

that both the ‘o’ and the ‘e’ are pronounced as short /i/ sounds - /wim.in/.

This is because in English, the spelling and pronunciation of a word can be very different,

and for this reason, whenever you say a word, you need to get the sounds right.

If you try to simply read the spelling, you might go wrong.

So you must use a dictionary to learn the correct pronunciation of words.

I suggest that you use an online dictionary like Cambridge, Oxford or Merriam-Webster

because that way, when you search for a word, you can see the pronunciation in phonetic

symbols, and you can also click a button to hear the correct pronunciation.

So here’s an action point for you: every day, learn the pronunciation of at least 5

words.

Pick words that you’re not sure how to pronounce, look them up in an online dictionary.

Play the audio on the website or app, and practice along with it.

For each word, practice saying it correctly at least 5 times.

This is my 5x5 method – practice the correct pronunciation of 5 words, 5 times every day.

Secret number two is stress.

What does it mean to stress something?

Well it means to give it emphasis or importance.

When we do this in pronunciation, it’s called word stress or syllable stress.

Take the word ‘school’.

You know there are four sounds but we don’t say /s/, /k/, /u:/, /l/.

We say all the sounds together as one group – ‘school’.

This grouping of sounds is called a syllable.

In the word /’wim.in/ there are two syllables because there are two groups of sounds – /wim/

and /in/.

If a word has two or more syllables, one syllable will always be stressed – that is, it will

be given more importance than the others.

In this word, notice that we stress the first syllable – /WIM-in/ – the apostrophe (the

little mark before /wim/) indicates this.

Here’s another word – ‘correct’.

There are again two syllables – ‘ka’ and ‘rekt’ but in this word, we stress

the second syllable - /rekt/.

So /ka-REKT/.

Notice how that stressed syllable is said with a slightly louder volume and it also

sounds longer - /ka’rekt/.

In this next word - how many syllables are there?

There are three – ba-nan-a.

Which is stressed –the second – ba-NAN-a.

Here’s one final example.

Three syllables again – af-ter-noon.

This time, the third syllable is stressed, so /af-ter-NOON/.

Like when we say Good afternoon.

It is very important to stress words correctly, because otherwise your pronunciation will

sound awkward and strange.

But if you can do this well, then it will show your listeners that you have good English

pronunciation.

Now generally, it’s difficult for us to guess which syllable in a word is stressed.

But there’s good news – when you look up a word in a dictionary, you will find that

the stressed syllable is marked.

Some dictionaries will show this as an apostrophe.

Others will capitalize the stressed syllable.

So when you learn the pronunciation of a word, you should learn to say the sounds correctly,

but you also learn which syllable to stress.

Number three is tone.

Another name for this is intonation.

This means the way our voices go up and down when we speak.

So it refers to the changes in the pitch of our voice.

Intonation exists in all the languages of the world but different languages use different

tones.

So this means that when you speak English, you might be using the intonation of your

language.

But to sound natural, you need to learn the tones of English.

Thankfully, English has just two major tones – these are called a rising tone and a falling

tone.

Have a look at this example: “I work as a teacher.”

– this is a falling tone because notice how my voice goes down in pitch at the end

– “I work as a teacher.”

Here’s another example: “Do you like ice-cream?”

This sentence has a rising tone because my voice goes up at the end.

“Do you like ice-cream?”

And this one - “What’s your favorite color?” has a falling tone.

“What’s your favorite color?”

These three sentences show us the three main rules for intonation in English – statements

(or affirmative sentences) are usually said with a falling tone.

Yes or no questions are said with a rising tone, and questions that ask for information

with question words like ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’ and ‘how’

normally have a falling tone.

This is important because if you use the wrong tone, your listener can misunderstand your

meaning, or they can be confused.

But an even bigger problem is that wrong intonation can show bad attitude.

Take this sentence for example: what is the purpose of it?

Well, imagine that I’m saying this to my boss because I want a day’s holiday from

work tomorrow.

So I’m asking for permission.

This type of sentence, should be said with a falling tone to show politeness.

But let me do the opposite – let me say it with a rising tone – “Would it be OK

if I took the day off tomorrow?”

How does that sound?

It sounds like I’m rude or maybe even disrespectful.

But notice how it sounds when I use the correct, falling tone – “Would it be OK if I took

the day off tomorrow?”

Isn’t that more polite?

And here’s one last example – you see this is an offer.

Maybe you’re a guest at my home, and I’m offering you coffee.

This should be said with a rising tone – but here’s the opposite, a falling tone – “Do

you want some coffee?”

Sounds terrible, right?

It sounds like I’m uninterested, bored, like I don’t want you as my guest.

Here’s the same sentence with my voice going up – “Do you want some coffee?”

Much better.

I’m sure that you see the importance of tone now.

A great way to improve your own intonation is to practice with English-language movies

and TV shows.

As you listen to the dialogue, notice the tones the speakers are using.

Practice along with them – it will be very helpful to have subtitles when you do this

because you can find out where the tone goes up or down.

If you’re watching on your computer or smartphone, you can even rewind and practice saying the

same sentences again and again until you get the tone right.

And finally, number four is the most important aspect of pronunciation - rhythm.

Rhythm relates to music, and we’re talking about it here because every language has a

kind of musical flow when native speakers speak it.

This is called the rhythm of the language.

English, of course, has its own rhythm.

And if you want great pronunciation, you need to understand and copy this rhythm.

Take this sentence for example: “HE lives WITH his wife ON A farm in THE VILLAGE.”

Did that sound right?

You could tell that there was something wrong with it.

Maybe I sounded like a robot.

That was because my rhythm was completely wrong.

So what is the right way to say this sentence?

Here it is – “He LIVES with his WIFE on a FARM in the VILLAGE.”

That sounded correct because I gave importance to some words in the sentence.

Notice that lives, wife, farm, and village stand out - if I take away these words, the

sentence has no meaning – That’s because these words have all the meaning or content

in the sentence, and they’re called content words – they’re usually nouns, verbs,

adjectives and adverbs – and they are emphasized (that is, stressed) in a sentence.

All the other words are grammar words – that is, they just give grammatical information

– pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions – we don’t stress them, instead we say

them quickly and softly - /he/, /widhiz/, /ona/, /indha/ – “He lives with wife on

a farm in the village”.

When you stress the content words, and un-stress the grammar words, you produce the correct

rhythm of English.

To speak with proper rhythm, there are three techniques you can use.

The first is to use weak forms of grammar words.

For example, this word is ‘can’.

This pronunciation is called the strong form.

But when we say it in a sentence, we say /cən/.

That’s the weak form.

‘And ’ become /ən/.

‘For’ becomes /fər/.

Weak forms help us to say grammar words quickly and easily.

Here’s a sentence.

How would you say it?

Here it is: “We can meet tomorrow and discuss arrangements for the conference.”

– ‘We can meet’ ‘tomorrow and discuss’ ‘arrangements for the conference.”

“We can meet tomorrow and discuss arrangements for the conference.”

The second technique is to use contractions.

We do this a lot with pronouns – instead of saying ‘I am’, we just say “I’m”,

and instead of “She is” we say ‘she’s’.

Here’s a sentence: “I’m trying to call her but she’s not answering her phone.”

“I’m trying to call her but she’s not answering her phone.”

The third technique is combinations – that is, to crush and combine grammar words together.

For example, the phrase ‘going to’ often becomes ‘goingta’ or even ‘gonna’

in informal speech.

I’m sure you’ve also heard ‘wanta’ or ‘wanna’ and ‘hafta’.

The phrases ‘should have’ ‘could have’ and ‘would have’ become ‘should’ve’,

could’ve’ and ‘would’ve’ or even ‘shoulda’ ‘coulda’ and ‘woulda’.

For example: “I’m going to visit my parents tomorrow.”

or “I’m gonna visit my parents tomorrow.”

“Do you want to have lunch with me?”

Notice I said “d-you-wanna”.

“If I had studied more, I would’ve passed the exam.”

We can contract “I had” to “I’d” and would’ve to woulda – “If I’d studied

more, I woulda passed the exam.”

There are many more weak forms, contractions, and combinations.

You should study and practice them in your own time.

The biggest pronunciation mistake that learners of English make is to stress all the words

in a sentence equally.

This is WRONG.

You should learn to stress only the content words and un-stress the grammar words.

Rhythm is also sometimes called sentence stress for this reason.

You should work on your rhythm when you watch English-language movies and TV shows.

A great technique is to stop a scene and look at the subtitles.

Before you hear the dialogue, think about which are the content words that will be stressed.

Try to say it on your own with the right rhythm.

Then play the scene and see if you got the rhythm correct.

Watch for the three techniques – weak forms, contractions and combinations.

Then practice speaking along with the actors.

This will give you the ability to both identify the rhythm of English and to be able to use

it correctly.

Alright, those are the four secrets to PERFECT English pronunciation – Sound, Stress, Tone,

and Rhythm.

Remember to keep practicing the exercises I shared with you in this video.

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Happy learning and I will see you in another lesson soon.