Make Your English Sound More Natural | Suffixes

Hey what's up Stefanie The English Coach  here from englishfulltime.com In this video,  

I want us to do some practice, some natural  English pronunciation practice with suffixes.  

Because I have found that when English  students try to pronounce suffixes, they often  

don't pronounce them the way that we usually  do in English. They might look at the actual  

letters and try to pronounce the letters and you  have to remember English is not spoken the way  

that it is written. So I have 15 very common  suffixes that we are going to go over and I  

have practice words that we're going to use,  three practice words for every suffix. Okay,  

so the first suffix if you look at it it looks  like -able okay but really I want you to think  

of this as uh-bohl, uh-bohl, okay so for  example available, available, available,  

lovable, lovable, okay and then reliable,  reliable, reliable, okay, so the -able suffix  

think of it as uh-bohl, okay, available, lovable,  reliable. Next we have what looks like -age but I  

don't want you to say age, I want you to say and  think of it as idg okay so, mileage, mileage,  

package, package, package, courage, courage,  courage. Next we have what looks like -ary or  

something like that but I want you to think of  it as ehr-y, okay like the air that we breathe,  

ehr-y, so ordinary, ordinary, nary, primary,  primary, dictionary, dictionary, dictionary,  

nary, nary, ordinary, primary, dictionary. Oh,  I forgot to say this is the document that I'm  

reading off of, you can go down to the description  and you can download it, and you can practice with  

it. I have the suffix, how you should think of it,  and then the practice words. So go ahead and get  

that. Next, we have what looks kind of like -cious  or something like that just think of it as shis  

or you could even remove the vowel  sound and think of it as shs. Okay, so  

delicious, delicious, delicious, mmm this cake  is delicious. Precious, precious, precious,  

conscious, conscious, conscious. Next  we have what looks like -dom okay,  

but I want you to think of it as -duhm, -duhm,  -duhm, okay so, kingdom, kingdom, kingdom,  

freedom freedom, freedom, uhm uhm wisdom,  wisdom, wisdom wisdom. Next, we have -ence,  

but I want you to think of it as ins so,  confidence, confidence, distance, confidence,  

independence, independence,  ins independence, patience,  

patience, patience. Next, we have -ent, but I  want you to think of it like int, int, student,  

student, confident, confident,  confident, different,  

int. Next, we have -ful okay, it's  just pronounced like that -ful,  

-ful and I like to represent that -ul sound as in  ol ol, fol, fol, beautiful, beautiful, cheerful,  

cheerful cheerful, cheerful, helpful,  helpful, helpful. Next, we have -ical,  

and I want you to think of it as either i-col or  uh-col, either one is fine so, magical, magical,  

okay magi or magi both are fine magical, magical,  or magical, magical. Next, historical, historical,  

historical, practical, practical,  practical. Next, we have -ism, -ism,  

-ism, and you could say -ism or you could say  i-zuhm, i-zuhm, i-zuhm, so listen racism, racism,  

or racism, racism, it really depends on how much  you reduce the vowel sound in the final syllable,  

okay so both are correct. Racism or racism.  I find that when I'm trying to speak extra  

clearly I tend to pronounce all of the sounds  and all of the syllables as much as possible,  

but when my speech is a little bit more  relaxed, like everyday speech you might say,  

then I tend to reduce those vowel sounds a little  bit more. So instead of saying racism, I might  

say racism, racism. Next, we have patriotism,  patriotism, i-zuhm, i-zuhm, criticism, criticism,  

criticism. Next we have what looks like -logy, but  we're going to say luh-djee, luh-djee, luh-djee,  

so psychology, psychology, psycholuh luh luhdjee,  luh-djee, luh-djee, psychology, biology, biology,  

biology, luh-djee, luh-djee, biology and geology,  geology, geology, luh-djee, luh-djee, geology.  

Next we have -ment but I want you to think of it  as mint, mint, mint, so development, development,  

improvement, improvement, improvement, sentiment  sentiment, sentiment. Next, we have -ness but I  

want you to think of it as nis, nis, nis,  happiness, happiness, happiness, kindness,  

kindness, kindness, darkness, darkness. Then we  have -tion but I want you to think of it as shin  

or shn shin or shn okay, so action, action, or  action, action, creation, creation or creation,  

creation, solution, solution or solution, solution  so in one version I'm just saying the e sound a  

little more prominently and in the other I'm just  reducing it okay basically s-h-n okay. The final  

one we have -ward and I want you to think of it  as werd werd actually like the word word, like,  

what word did he say, word so we have backward,  backward, backward, forward, forward, and upward,  

upward, upward. Okay, so I hope this exercise  helps you see that you cannot rely on the spelling  

in English, and if you try to read words the way  they are spelled it will actually make your accent  

stronger, more prominent and if you want to reduce  your accent if you want to sound more natural,  

if you want to speak more clearly, then you have  to really listen to how English is spoken and  

imitate that. Don't rely on the written system  because it will confuse you and it likely has  

already confused you so this is something we go  over extensively in my program Accent Freedom,  

but that program is not open for enrollment right  now, and a good stepping stone into that program,  

because that is a big 12-week program with a  lot in it, but a good stepping stone into that  

program if you're struggling with your sounds in  English and you really want to fine tune them and  

learn how to master every single sound of English  so you can speak clearly then I would recommend  

checking out my Amazing American Accent Sound  Bank Course, because it will teach you how to  

make every single sound of American English  clearly and it's all based on the way that  

I speak. So hopefully you already know this that  there are lots of ways to speak American English  

but I developed a course that's all about how I  speak so if you want to use me as your role model  

you can do that and you can learn by imitating  my sounds and my speech. Okay so that's it do  

not forget to download this document and uh  I'll see you in another video take care, bye.