Top 10 Ways to Improve Your English Pronunciation

hi everybody and welcome back to top

words my name is Alisha and today we're going to talk about 10 ways to help

improve your pronunciation this is gonna be a good one

I think so let's go sing along to a favorite song alright so the first tip

for improving your pronunciation is to sing along to a favorite song so if you

should add though this favourite song should be in your target language so if

you're studying English pick a favorite English song and sing along to that song

or try to sing to the song just from memory too so singing along to your

favorite song can help you with pronunciation can help you with the

rhythm sometimes of the language you're trying to learn so it can be really fun

and it can be a good way to practice your pronunciation in a sentence I like

singing along to my favorite songs read out loud the next tip for your

pronunciation is to read out loud so reading out loud you can choose

something that's interesting for you and you're in English if english is the

language you're studying so pick something maybe it's a news article or

maybe it's a book you're interested in maybe there's an author you're

interested in find something in your target language in English and try

reading it out loud so don't just read in your mind but read the words out loud

speak them so that you can get comfortable pronouncing those words and

you can try reading the same passage or the same sentence multiple times to make

it smoother so this can be a really good tip for and I think it also improves

your natural ability to pick up grammar too because if you're reading something

like in a book for example you can kind of pick up the natural rhythm of grammar

and you also slowly get a feeling for the correct ways that words should

connect together so this I think is a really good tip in a sentence I

sometimes read out loud to practice pronunciation

that's true repeat lines you hear in TV shows the next tip is to repeat lines

you hear or the words you hear in TV shows or movies things like that so this

means not only words don't only repeat single vocabulary words yes maybe you

find a vocabulary word that is really interesting or it sounds funny or

something like that but by repeating a full sentence or a full line in a TV

show or in a movie you're putting the words together so not just one word but

making a whole sentence so feeling kind of the flow of your language that you're

studying so this can be a better way to actually practice making sentences and

repeating sentences instead of just words so you can repeat after characters

and TV shows I sometimes do this when I'm like watching Japanese TV and then I

try and spit it back out it's hard to do sometimes when it's like the first time

you've heard a word or the first time you've heard a grammar point but you can

still understand that sentence it's interesting so try to say it and it's

kind of fun actually in a sentence try repeating lines from

TV shows to practice practice speaking in phrases not single vocabulary words

the next tip this is very similar to my TV show tip is to practice speaking in

phrases not in vocabulary words not just single vocabulary words even if you're

not repeating lines from TV shows when you practice speaking don't just speak

in noun so sometimes for example I'll hear people just use noun like they'll

use a noun and maybe a verb like I tomorrow Beach something like that and

yes we can probably guess based on that how like the the meaning the speaker's

meaning but you need to practice making a whole sentence so yes you know those

words I tomorrow in beach and the listener can probably guess what you

mean but you need to practice all those little words in the middle like like I'm

going to the beach tomorrow so make a full sentence practice making full

sentences don't only just single vocabulary words make the

whole line it's really good sometimes I think my students get

irritated like they'll like I forced them to practice full sentences like so

I'll say like mmm have you ever been to Germany and

they'll say yes I'm like okay for the purposes of practice can you make a full

sentence and they'll say I have been to Germany like that's an extreme example

but like I try to push that you know making the full sentence it's it's silly

sometimes but just trying to do that okay so in a sentence

speaking in entire phrases is helpful for practicing the rhythm of a new

language speak a lot with your teacher and ask them to be strict with you on

words okay so the next tip is to speak a lot with your teacher and ask them to be

strict with you so this is kind of two tips in 1 1 speak with your teacher so

if you have a teacher make sure you're speaking in their class if you if

wherever possible sometimes I'll have students join my class and maybe they

feel shy or whatever and they don't speak very much but please speak with

your teacher so that your teacher can correct you your teacher can give you at

least if they're a native speaker or maybe even if they aren't a native

speaker your teacher can give you corrections and if you don't speak your

teacher cannot help you in most cases so please speak with your teacher and if

you like you can tell them please be strict about my pronunciation so

sometimes people will say please help me with my pronunciation specifically and

then I can stop them every time they make a mistake and we practice that

sound especially 80h sounds like that like using using your mouth a little bit

differently can be really uncomfortable for some people but if you're a teacher

can point out those things like th sounds the this that these those those

th sounds ending ER sound practicing those with your teacher can

be a really good way to work on your pronunciation so in a sentence speak a

lot with your teacher they can correct you and help you improve try recording

yourself speaking play it back the next tip for practicing

your pronunciation is to try recording yourself speaking and listen to it play

it back and listen to it so this it might sound a little bit strange but

when we're speaking maybe we don't hear certain things that certain maybe our

little idiosyncrasies or our the little special things that we do when we speak

maybe we don't hear them as we speak but when we listen to ourselves later we

notice them so for example when I watch this video when I watch any of these

videos I notice little things that I didn't notice at now when I'm filming

the video so the same can apply to your pronunciation when you listen to

yourself speak you might hear something that you don't notice when you're

speaking so this can be a good way to to kind of remove yourself to go outside

your body a little bit and listen to yourself from the listeners perspective

so this might be a tip to try in a sentence sometimes you hear yourself

more clearly on a recording do shadowing exercises all right the next tip for

pronunciation is to do shadowing exercises so a shadowing exercise there

are text books and and I think resources on the web so on the website I'm

actually I think you could use the website any English listening or

anything in your target language when you listen to that as the speaker is

speaking you quickly repeat back what the speaker is saying so as you're

listening to it you repeat it almost immediately so you're trying to to match

their pronunciation as closely as accurately as possible this is called a

shadowing exercise so I've seen some cases where people are textbooks will

recommend doing you know 15 minutes of shadowing each day or something like

that or maybe you can do a shadowing exercise listening to a podcast or

listening to the news or something you might find on the website here so that's

a really good way to work on your pronunciation and to get familiar with

you using those sounds kind of more

naturally the way a native speaker would so this can be a good tip to improve

your pronunciation in a sentence try shadowing a native speaker to

improve your pronunciation chat with native speakers so yeah the next tip is

to chat with native speakers so chatting with native speakers of course is a

great way to make friends be to pick up new vocabulary see to get

familiar with grammar and slang but also it can help your pronunciation not all

native speakers speak with exactly the same pronunciation so you might hear

slight differences depending on the country depending on the region in a

country and native speaker comes from so there are many different kinds of

pronunciations or many different there are many different pronunciations but

when you chat with native speakers you can kind of understand the different

pronunciations that are out there and maybe it can help you be more consistent

in your presentation in your pronunciation too so this could be a

good way to improve your pronunciation but of course it's important in general

for learning a language I think in a sentence chatting with native speakers

is an important part of learning a language do pronunciation drills the

next tip is to do pronunciation drills so if you know that there is a sound if

you know that there's something that you always struggle with try drilling it so

do a drill to drill something means to repeat a lot so you might hear this word

used for like like sports and fitness like you drill a skill you which means

to practice something a lot and intensively so if you know that there's

like the th sound is really difficult for you maybe take ten minutes and do a

pronunciation drill on those sounds for you know every day for a month or

something so if you know that there's a specific sound that's difficult for you

consider trying just some very specific pronunciation drills so that can mean

just making that sound repeatedly or maybe reading a text out loud that

a lot of that kind of pronunciation I think you can find a few different ways

to drill to practice intensively those parts of pronunciation that are

difficult for you so in a sentence try doing pronunciation drills for the

sounds you have trouble making find words that are particularly interesting

to you so I think maybe this is the last tip is to find words that are

particularly interesting to you so maybe there's a word that sounds really funny

or maybe you found a really long word in English or a really interesting word a

word that has an interesting history whatever if you can find words that are

interesting to you then maybe you can put some extra emphasis on pronouncing

them correctly so if you're actually enjoying the words that you're learning

then I think it'll become more important for you to express that accurately in

your speech and so focusing on those words maybe and in pronouncing those

words correctly perhaps that can help you apply that same pronunciation in

this interesting word maybe the pronunciation of that word or

some of the parts of that word you can find that in other words in other places

throughout your target language so if you enjoy a particular word and focus on

expressing that word pronouncing that word accurately it can help you maybe

apply that pronunciation in other parts of the language so give it a try

in a sentence take extra care to pronounce words of particular interest

correctly that's the end so those are ten tips to help you improve your

pronunciation if there's anything else that you do to work on your

pronunciation or if you have any questions please leave us a comment and

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watching this episode of top words and we will see you again soon bye

you