Introduction: Why is pronunciation important?
Pronunciation is an important part of learning a new language. As a learner of languages, I’ve found great frustration when people don’t understand my pronunciation. “I’ve put in so much hard work learning the correct grammar and vocabulary, but people don’t understand my pronunciation!” Have you ever felt this way? Perhaps the worst thing is that we’re often not aware of what exactly the problem is, and therefore, what we can do to improve.
There is often an incorrect belief that learning pronunciation is only about improving speaking. You may have noticed that the English you understand best is the English spoken by speakers of your own first language, and also that they usually understand you. This is largely because you both speak English with similar pronunciation. However, when you speak English with a native speaker, you both may struggle more to understand each other. This shows that improving your understanding of English pronunciation will not only help your Speaking, but also your Listening.
Should I sound like a native speaker?
No! While pronunciation is important because we need to be understood, you should not feel that you need to sound like a native speaker. Such an attitude is not helpful, as it may lead to discouragement and is not realistic. Most adult learners of other languages speak differently to native speakers. As long as you can understand and be understood, this is a good thing. Every speaker of English, including native speakers, speaks English differently to other speakers. If your way of speaking identifies you as American, Chinese or French, that should not be seen as a negative. Therefore, the focus should be on being understood, not mimicking.
Reasons for pronunciation problems
Transference from your first language
All learners will transfer pronunciation rules from their first language into their English. For example, Spanish speakers often add an e sound to words starting with s (e.g. say eschool rather than school). As discussed above, the spelling system of English is complex and confusing for learners. For speakers of highly phonetic languages such as Spanish and Italian, the most troublesome transference is their expectation that words will sound the way they are written. Furthermore, as English shares a lot of vocabulary that you may recognise from your first language, you may pronounce a word as you would in your language. In Romance languages, words ending in -tion or -cion often stress the last syllable, so learners might have to un-learn that rule and learn the English rule. In English, words ending in -ion always carry the stress on the second-last syllable and the ending always contains a schwa -/ən/. For example: communication /kəˌmjuː.nɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/ and investigation /ɪnˌves.tɪˈɡeɪ.ʃən/. This is also true of two-syllable -ion words such as cushion – /ˈkʊʃ.ən/ in which the second-last syllable is the first syllable. Noticing patterns (or learning them in class) will help you consciously improve your pronunciation.
Confusion caused by the spelling system in English
You may find the way we write English a bit confusing. We sometimes write the /k/ sound with a k, and sometimes with a c, ch or even with qu (e.g. as in plaque). We have words like enough, light and asthma, which require knowledge of certain patterns and seem to be quite illogical. Then we have many words with silent letters such as psychology, comb, tomb, island, and knight. We have adopted French words such as deja vu, lingerie and machine. However, don’t despair – there are many patterns that repeat again and again and the way we spell English words often has a logic that’s not instantly obvious. The pronunciation of the majority of words is entirely guessable.
If you are interested in some of the historical reasons for the unphonetic nature of English spelling, click the button.
Stress, rhythm and intonation:
English has a natural rhythm, with our intonation rising and falling. Keywords are stressed, while other words are not stressed. Unstressed words are usually shortened. Many words (such as is, are, was were) are pronounced differently depending on whether they are stressed or not. We refer to the shortened, unstressed pronunciation of the word as the weak form and the stressed version as the strong form. This is a key element of connected speech.
Connected speech
What is connected speech?
When we speak in sentences, we naturally join sounds together, with each word being affected by the word before it and the word after it. In addition, some words and some syllables in English are stressed, while others are not, depending on the context and the sentence they are in. As a results, some sounds change in a particular sentence, while others join together, disappear, or are greatly reduced in volume.
Is connected speech always informal?
While informal speech uses many more features of connected speech, this is also a feature of formal speech. Unfortunately, some learners of English see connected speech as uneducated, and therefore believe that they should avoid it. However, every speaker of most native dialects of English* uses it unconsciously, including the Queen of England! Nevertheless, it is true that more connected speech is used in informal English, and less is used is formal English.
Why do I need to learn about connected speech?
Almost every sentence you will ever hear in English will contain elements of connected speech. It’s how we speak: speech has a natural flow, where words are stressed or not stressed and words blend together, with sounds changing, disappearing or being inserted in order to allow this flow of speech. Being able to speak naturally by using connected speech will make it easier for others to understand you, but more importantly, learning about connected speech will greatly help your listening skills.
* Show note- you will learn the systems of pronunciation and patterns which are repeated.
- you will become more aware of syllables.
- you will learn about syllable stress and schwa /ə/in unstressed syllables.
Click here for more information about connected speech.
The schwa sound – /ə/
This is the most common of all the 12 single vowel sounds in English and is an important part of connected speech and the rhythm and stress of sentences in English. Click here for more information about the schwa sound.
Consonant clusters
Consonant clusters are combinations of consonant sounds without a vowel in between. If a combination doesn’t exist in one’s first language, we may have difficulty producing the sound in English. For example, some learners struggle with the tr cluster as in trash. They may produce a ch sound as in cheese. Other learners may struggle with the sp cluster and unconsciously insert a vowel, pronouncing spoon as ‘sipoon‘ or pronounce sport as ‘support‘. The st cluster as in fast, past or west is a very common cluster difficulty for Thai speakers English, and they often omit the s, saying these words as fart, part and wet. English consonant clusters are particularly difficult for speakers of South East Asian languages such as Cantonese, Vietnamese, Thai, Lao and Cambodian.
Minimal pairs
As a learner of Dutch, there are words that I struggle to pronounce because of sound pairs that sound identical to me. Perhaps this happens to you with pairs like l/r e.g. low/row or the long/short i sounds in ship/sheep. If you can’t hear the difference, you can’t learn how to pronounce them correctly. We call these word pairs ‘minimal pairs‘ because the only difference between the two words is one sound. The ch / sh sounds in shoes and choose are examples of a common minimal pair for speakers of Vietnamese, Thai and Spanish. Listen to the example below.
Click here to see/listen to some minimal pairs and learn some strategies for improvement.
Personal limitations with individual sounds
When we learn a foreign language, we often struggle to produce some of the sounds of that language. Sometimes the problem is that we just don’t know what parts of the mouth are used to make the sound. When we learn a new language as adults, it may be difficult for us to train our mouths and tongue to produce a particular sound as it may require developing the muscles of our mouth in a new way. Another problem is that we might not hear the sound correctly – the brain tends to process what it already knows, so we may hear a sound from our own language and not realise that it’s actually a different, unfamiliar sound. Improving starts with an awareness that there’s a problem, followed by learning what parts of the mouth are used to produce the sound.
How can I improve my pronunciation?
When we think about poor pronunciation, we often just think of difficulties producing individual sounds – for example, saying light/right correctly. However pronunciation is far more complicated, and other issues mentioned above, such as rhythm and stress are far more important than individual sounds.
The phonemic alphabet
As the writing system in the English language is confusing to learners, it is useful for you to become more aware of rules and patterns that are repeated. There is a special alphabet designed to help you learn the sounds of English. It’s called the phonemic chart and it’s a way to write English the way it sounds. There are 44 characters, and each character has only one sound. There are many benefits for learners of using it:
You can use the Phonemic Chart here to learn. Click the characters to hear the sounds. There is a printable phonemic chart on the Englishclub website. You can also download an awesome app called Sounds Right from the British Council on the Google Play and Apple stores. To go to the website, click here.
Videos showing mouth movements
The University of Iowa (USA) has a great website with videos showing the ways the parts of the mouth are used to produce individual sounds, but unfortunately, you will need an old browser such as Internet Explorer to display it. Click here to open. Alternately, you can purchase their app for a small price on the Apple store and Google Play. Note that you will learn about American English rather than British English at this website.
My biggest tips
- Don’t worry if you don’t sound like a native speaker. Just worry about understanding and being understood. An accent that identifies who you are is a good thing.
- Learn about connected speech and regularly practise listening for it and using it.
- Learn about the schwa and its role in sentence stress.
- Identify your pronunciation problems so you can work on fixing them.