Pronunciation Tips

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From the course by University of California, Irvine

Tricky American English Pronunciation

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University of California, Irvine

Tricky American English Pronunciation

352 ratings

In this course, you’ll practice the sounds of American English that might sometimes be confusing. You'll practice both consonant and vowel sounds. You’ll also learn about the things that give English its special “music,” such as how to stress the right syllable in a word, how to make your voice go up and down in a natural-sounding melody, and how to naturally connect sounds and words. Learning these things will help you speak more clearly and make sure that others can understand what you're saying. This course is useful for English language learners who want to improve pronunciation of American English for better communication. Note that access to all of the lectures and handouts are free to anyone, but the graded assignments and quizzes are only available in the paid version of the course. You will need to submit recordings of your own pronunciation for graded assignments.

From the lesson

The Music of American English Pronunciation

This week, you’ll learn about some things that give English its special rhythm and melody. You’ll learn about syllables—the small chunks of sound that make up the “beats” in words—and word stress—the way some parts of words are emphasized more than others. You’ll also see how some words become shorter and weaker when we talk. Since these words are used very often in ordinary speaking, we can’t understand spoken English without them. Our goal this week is to help you use the music of English to communicate more effectively and to be understood more easily when you speak. Enjoy learning about the music of American English pronunciation.

Shadowing a Conversation2:34

Pronunciation Tips6:15

Meet the Instructors

Tamy Chapman
Instructor, International Programs
University of California Irvine Division of Continuing Education
Marla Yoshida
Academic Coordinator
International Programs
Brad Gilpin

Let's learn some helpful tips for learning American English pronunciation.

[MUSIC]

We've asked some English teachers to give you advice

on learning American English pronunciation.

So let's meet the teachers.

>> Hi, my name is Jolanta, and

I teach English as a second language here in Irvine.

And I am also a non-native speaker.

>> Hi, my name is Rachel Fernandez.

I teach English as a second language at UCI.

And I am from California.

>> Hi, my name is Meg Parker.

I'm an instructor at UCI and my native language is English.

>> Today's question is can connected

speech affect your listening comprehension?

>> When I first time came to the United States,

I went to a restaurant with a friend and the waiter was speaking so

fast that I just could not understand what he was offering me from the menu.

And he asked me, do you want a soup or salad.

And I thought he asked me if I wanted a super salad.

And I said no.

I don't want a super salad, I'm not really hungry.

I just want a small salad.

And [LAUGH] the waiter looked at me with bewilderness in his eyes.

He was shocked because I could not understand.

But my friend quickly told me that Jolanta, he asked you for soup or salad.

So you have to make a choice, did you want soup or did you want salad?

So then I understood that, right,

I have to also learn how to listen.

I have to practice my listening skills to be able to hear what people say and

to be able to also pronounce the way a native speaker would say, right?

Because native speakers speak very, very fast.

They cluster the words together.

And this is the hardest probably part for us to differentiate,

right, what the words are that they are saying.

>> Okay, so this is something that happened in a low level

speaking listening class.

And we have a ten week program.

This poor student came in week three after class and said, Rachel,

I have a vocabulary question for you.

And I said, shoot, what is it?

And he said, the word is snoo.

I don't know what it means, and I can't find it in my dictionary.

And I said, snoo, hm, I don't think I've heard of that before.

Could you spell it for me?

And he spelled it out, and he said, maybe it's S-N-O-O, snoo.

And I looked at it and I said, no, I'm sorry.

I don't think that's a word.

Where did you hear it?

And he said, you!

You say it every day!

And I said, [LAUGH] what?

And he said every morning you ask about the snoo.

And I thought, man, and every morning I say, good morning, hey everybody.

What's new?

And so I'm saying what's new and he understood what snew?

And so all the other students in class are answering me and

this poor kid is thinking I don't know what the snew is!

What is she asking about?

But it's that linked thing we do in English where my s from the what's

goes over to the new and I say what's new.

What's new?

What's new, what's new.

>> Today's question was can connected speech affect

your listening comprehension?

And the answer is yes, absolutely.

So maybe you're wondering, what can I do about it?

How can I improve my ability to understand connected speech?

Let's listen to a few ideas.

>> So a lot of times my students ask me, it's so

overwhelming that in English you use so much connected speech.

How can I start to understand?

Because it's hard for your listening comprehension if you can't start to

pick up on what the connected speech is.

And so, some things that I tell them to do are,

number one, it's really good to listen to something and try to dictate it.

So try to write it down.

Especially songs.

Songs have a lot of connected speech in them.

Even Americans get confused sometimes about what the singer is saying.

So listen to a line of a song, stop your CD player or

your computer and try to write the line down.

And that way you're kind of forcing your brain to try to listen and decide,

what are those written words that go with the connected words you're hearing?

I do that when I'm learning Spanish and it's really fun.

Another thing to do just watch television,

watch a movie with the captions on in English, or with a script.

So you can see, he's saying wuddoya, but here on the script it says what do you.

So then you training your brain to start to pick up on those common

connected sounds.

So that later your brain automatically knows, wuddoya, that means what do you.

>> So to sum up, you can train yourself to identify common connective

speech patterns by listening to and dictating or writing down what you hear.

This is especially fun to do with music.

Also, you can watch TV or movies with a script or with captions and

follow along with the words.

If you follow these tips,

your brain will start associating the connected words with the written words.

And you'll start to have an easier time recognizing connected speech.

Finally, connected speech is difficult, but it's a fun challenge.

It's a little like solving a puzzle.

At first it's hard but the more you do it and the better you get,

the more rewarding the experience, so good luck.

[MUSIC]

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