How to practice English pronunciation

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One of the most common questions that my students ask me is how to improve their English pronunciation. So today, I’d like to give you some tips on how to practice English pronunciation for best results.

Many of my students have already learned the most important rules of English pronunciation and accent reduction, but they are still making mistakes when they speak.

Maybe you feel the same? If so, here are 5 steps to fix this problem so that you can speak correctly and naturally. You will feel a lot more confident if you practice using these 5 steps:

Step 1

Focus on one mistake that you want to fix

Find a video lesson or exercises in a book that teach that sound.  Repeat the individual sound and words containing that sound over and over again so that your mouth muscles can get stronger.  That way, your brain will remember what your mouth is doing, and each time it will easier to form the sound.

Step 2

Get away from the boring exercises and bring “real life” into your practice.

The pronunciation book or the videos are not “real life.”  Choose one or two paragraphs from a book or an article, or a part of a TV script that you find online and read them out loud. Before you read out loud, look for the sound that you are practicing.  Underline or highlight the sound. Read the same short text eight to ten times. First read it slowly and carefully. If it doesn’t sound natural, that’s OK. Correctness is the goal. Then read it again and again, faster each time, until it begins to sound more natural.

Step 3

Speak with yourself

You may not yet be ready to pronounce the difficult sounds correctly in natural conversations with others, but you can make great improvements by saying your thoughts out loud when you’re alone.  This way, if you make a mistake, you can say the sentence again, correcting that mistake. You can make very good progress with this way of practicing.  The best thing is, you can relax and not worry about how you sound to others.

Step 4

Record yourself speaking English

Choose a topic to talk about for two or three minutes. Talk about anything you wish – how your day was, your opinion on something, etc. Then playback the recording and listen for the mistakes.  When you hear a mistake, press the “pause” button and repeat the sentence correctly.  Make a list of the words that don’t sound correct and practice them later.  Keep doing that on a regular basis.

Step 5

Speak with people and don’t worry about how you sound

It’s OK to make mistakes. Relax and enjoy speaking English. That is considered practice also. During the conversation, once in a while check your speech. For maybe 20 or 30 seconds at a time, speak extra clearly and carefully. Then go back to relaxing and not thinking about it. The more you do this, the less frequently you will have to pay attention to how you are speaking because you will be making fewer mistakes.

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