How to Improve Your English Pronunciation, Travel Vocabulary, and Using New Words (AJ #7)

Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com here with

episode 7 of Ask Jack - the free series where I answer your questions about

learning English

and the English language. If you have a question about learning English then

please click the link here

it will take you to a form and you keep ask me

anything and I'll do my best to answer it

in this series. So, let's have a look

at the first question from today. Pari from India asks:

what's the best way to improve my pronunciation?

Thank you for this great question, Pari.

So, improving your pronunciation is going to help you

express yourself more freely in English

and in addition, it's going to help your comprehension too,

so, it's an important part of English and it's something that I feel

learners should spend more time on. And I'm gonna share a couple of tips today

that's going to help you improve your pronunciation. And the first tip

is to learn the different English sounds

and to know how to say them. So, there are many different sounds in English:

there are around 24

different vowel sounds in English, and

a lot of learners don't have these same vowels sounds in their own native language

and, therefore, they can say them; they don't know how to produce these sounds;

they don't know what to do with their mouth. so, the first stage

is to learn how to how to say the different sounds in English

because it's going to make you sound much better

and it could also help you with your speaking because if you

can say these different sounds, then you'll be able to just use your mouth in a

more natural way

and your English will flow; its gonna flow a lot better

So, learn how to say the different sounds; know what to do with your tongue; with

your mouth;

with your lips, and I've got a great

resource for, I'm going to include that it the show notes - it's gonna help you

to be able to do this... and work on... and to

to work out exactly what you need to do with your mouth

for the different english sounds. The second tip

is to imitate speakers, so to imitate

audio that you've found online; audio that you find

anywhere really and just copy what people are saying

and to take this a step further, what you can do

is you can record your version and then compare it

to the original, so you can listen to, for example, you can listen to

a sentence from Friends - let's just say

Ross from Friends - listen to a sentence he says

repeat it, record it, and then compare it

to the original and this will help you especially

when it comes to the connected speech; to the ryhthm and the intonation

the stress, and everything else that you need to do

to be able to, erm, improve your pronunciation

So, those the two things that you can do to help your potentiation

and I recommend that you spend time working on this cuz' it's going to help

your

overall English and it's going to definitely

improve your English speaking skills. Hunji from South Korea

what's the difference between travel, trip

tour and journey? Thank you for your question. Now,

these different words can be confusing because they're used in different ways

and, obviously, they're quite similar or they might seem quite similar:

we can use some of them as adjectives, verbs, and nouns,

and also there are many collocations with them. But instead of going into

all the different examples and and giving you like complete overview

what I want to do is to talk about my holiday

talk about our vacation. So, we're going to go to

to Europe in two weeks - as of this recording -

and I can say, for example,

I'm really looking forward to my holiday but

I'm not looking forward to the journey. So,

the first one here is "journey" and the journey just means

the act of going somewhere or

coming back - so it means going on the plane

the time it takes and I'm not looking forward to the journey

because it's going to be very stressful especially with my son.

So, we're going to, obviously, go to the airport

change planes, get our luggage, get the train

all those different things - so it's going to be a long

journey. Now, another... when we get back

from our holida,y people are going to ask us:

How was your trip? How was your trip?

So, the trip is is like the overall situation

and a lot of times it's used for short holidays

like a business trip or a road trip

or a school trip. So, they're really short periods of travel

where people are going away for a specific purpose.

In our example, we're going away for pleasure

erm, now another one is travel

and this is used a lot as a verb, so I can say, for example,

I like traveling; I went travelling

in 2007; so in 2007, I went travelling

for nine months.

I can also say I traveled around South America

because I went to different places in South America.

Now, a tour is mainly used for

when you're going to lots of different places at one time

for example, a tour bus

will take you around different places in London and you can take a tour of London

where you'll go to to the most famous landmarks and museums

all in maybe on to two days...

tours can also be used for bands, as well ,on a band

tour, so the the band will go to different cities and it's known as a

tour.

so..... as I say (there are) many different ways you can use them, but hopefully, you

know, that example

has given you a better overview; an introduction

to these four different words. Again,

as with everything, try to learn them in context

so don't try to memorize all the rules because you won't be able to use them,

instead when you see these words being used

just notice how they are used and try think about the

the meaning - and I'm going to leave more examples

in the show notes too, so be sure to check that out.

Haniya from Sri Lanka asks: when I learn a new word

sometimes I can't use it when talking.

What should I do? Thank you for your question Haniya.

So, this is a a really good question because

it really helps us think about

whatl happens when we're speaking and why it's difficult

to use new words in conversation

and the reason why it is difficult

is because when we're speaking, there are so many things going on

we're interacting with someone; we're in a noisy environment sometimes;

we have to think about our pronunciation;

we need to think about sentence structure and grammar;

also, we need to think about if our words are appropriate for the situation

and we're listening to the person we're speaking to...

so, so many things are going on and

it is difficult to introduce new words

you have just learned into conversation

Now, this is why, or one of the reasons why, I always say

learn phrases not words; learn

English in context because when you have a sentence or phrase that you can say

and you know that it's correct in the context, then

you don't hesitate and you're not trying to be too

analytical and think about all the different things are going on -

it just comes out naturally. So, when you're learning a new word or phrase

learn it in context, so that you know when you can use it

and then learn it in the context of a phrase or sentence

so, you know how to use. So this is why I always say

context is so important when learning new words and phrases.

But, once to do that, what I recommend you do

is after learning a new word or phrase

use it as soon as possible,

especially with someone who can correct you

because if you're learning a new word or phrase

and you're using it incorrectly, then

that's worse than not knowing the word or phrase

so getting that feedback

from somebody, from a teacher or

anyone - a friend - it's going to help you know

what you're saying is correct and then when you know this:

when you know how to use it and

you know it's correct when you say it, then it will give you the confidence

to use it again. And when you when you use it

you'll be able to remember it better. So,

there's a lot.... this answer... there's a lot going on in this answer

but what I want to say is: it's really important

to learn the right words and phrases and to know when to use them

and when you use them - you're going to gain the confidence

to use them in different situations

and without thinking, in the future. So I hope that helps

I'm gonna leave more information again in the show notes.

Now, my question for this episode is this:

if you could travel to any country

in the world where would you go? So, leave your answers below this video,

thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time!