What are the five main areas of English pronunciation, and why are they important? There are five main areas of difficulty in English pronunciation. These are : Pronunciation of individual sounds Word stress Sentence stress Rhythm Intonation In the table below, you can see what the main problems are in pronouncing English and how you might be able to improve. Area of difficulty Implications of this particular area How to improve 1. Pronunciation of individual sounds There may be confusion between minimal pairs (e.g. bed/bad, ship/sheep) and this may compromise meaning. Use lists to practise repeating minimal pairs Use tongue twisters to practise special sounds. Practise the sounds of English by using the phonemic chart. 2. Word stress Sometimes words ‘shift’ their stress so word stress can actually change the meaning of the word (e.g. record (v)/record (n)) Check your dictionary in advance of a seminar or presentation to make sure you know where the stress falls on long words. Repeat the words. An demonstration of how word stress appears in the dictionary can be seen here 3. Sentence stress Sometimes emphasising different words suggests different contrasting information (e.g. how does the meaning change when different words of the following sentence are stressed : ‘Mary saw a red car driven by a young man with brown hair’) Try to exaggerate (make even stronger) the stress on key words – this may sound unusual to you, but will probably sound perfectly natural to the listener. 4. Rhythm Rhythm is important to maintain the flow of the language. English is a stress-timed language. Problems with this are not so likely to affect comprehension but getting the rhythm right does help the listener to follow your argument.. Practise reading poems, limericks, etc out loud to get a sense of how English rhythm works. 5. Intonation Getting the right intonation is important to convey the right attitude – i.e. high start for questions, tentativity and wide pitch variation to show greater enthusiasm. Vary your voice more and try not to speak in a monotone.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 01:12:38 +0000
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