LIVE CLASS - Pronunciation practice & tips

Hello, students. It's Shaina, your teacher at EspressoEnglish.net, coming to you live today on Sunday. I hope you are having a good weekend so far. If you're joining me live, I would love to see you participate in the chat, or if you're watching this later, then please leave a comment. So, I want to focus today's live class on pronunciation, because I know it's an area that a lot of English learners struggle with and want to improve. So, to start off, I want to ask you if you have a word that you find difficult to pronounce in English, please type it in the chat, because then towards the end of the video, I'm going to go back and give you some tips for those difficult words. Maybe there are words that you don't know how to pronounce, or you're not sure. Or maybe there are words that you know how to pronounce, but you just find them very difficult to say, and so maybe you avoid trying to say them in English. I want to help you with those difficult words, so post them in the chat. Great, I already see some people posting words in the chat, and I see some hellos from Vietnam Ecuador, and many others. Okay, keep posting your words, I'll come back to them at the end. But I'm going to start today's lesson with a question I got before, which is about how to pronounce words that end in I-L-E. So, words like hostile, and mobile, and versatile. Well, this is actually more complicated than it seems, because there are two different pronunciations. So let's take the word versatile as an example. First to define it, someone or something that is versatile means it has a lot of different abilities or can be used for a lot of different things. So for example, a cell phone is a very versatile device, because you can use it as a phone, or as a camera, or to listen to music, okay? That's what it means for something to be versatile. Or a person who is versatile has a lot of different skills. Versatile is spelled V-E-R-S-I-T-I-L-E, so it ends with I-L-E. But American English speakers will tend to pronounce it like I just did, versatile. That last part sounds like ul, versatile. But British English speakers might tend to pronounce it like versatile. So that last part, the I-L-E, they will pronounce like aisle, versatile. Both ways are correct. It just depends on whether you're talking with an American English speaker or a British English speaker. Versatile for Americans and versatile for British. That's also why you'll hear both mobile phone and mobile phone. Which is correct? They're both correct. It's just a slight pronunciation difference. So this is the case for words like hostile. That's H-O-S-T-I-L-E. If someone is hostile, it means they have bad intentions and like they're trying to start a fight. Hostile, feudal, missile, which is like a bomb, fertile, fragile, something that is fragile, breaks easily or could break easily, mobile, as I mentioned before. All of those words end in I-L-E and I, as an American English speaker, pronounce the I-L-E like ul, fertile, fragile, missile, versatile, hostile. But there are some words that end in I-L-E which are always pronounced with aisle and not ul, independently of whether the person is American or British. So we always pronounce it like aisle in the short words like smile, pile, tile, as well as reptile and profile, like your Facebook profile. We don't pronounce it like ul in those cases. We pronounce it like aisle. How can you know which is which? You can't know just by looking at the word. You need to check an audio dictionary. All right. So that was a great question. My next one has to do with the pronunciation differences between of and off. There are actually two differences between these two words, of, that's written O-F, and off O-F-F, okay? So the first difference is in the vowel, of, O-F, the O sounds like uh, uh, uh, of. It's almost like a really short U sound like in the word butt. And other words that have the same sound are words where we have an O in the position of an unstressed syllable. So like the word, um, let me think, uh, well actually, I take it back. Sometimes the O is pronounced like that even when it's in a stressed syllable. So like the word cover, uh, the O, it's an O, but we don't say cover or calver, we say cover, uh, uh, cover, uh, other, also another, um, it's that same uh sound. Uh, then in the word off, the O sounds like an aw, okay? So of, the O sounds like uh, and off, it sounds like aw. So that's the same sound like in the word saw, past tense of see. See in the present, saw in the past, aw, aw, saw. And uh, in the word bought, past tense of buy, uh, buy in the present and bought in the past, aw, bought. Or in the word awful, which means terrible, awful, there it's spelled A-W, but that's all the same vowel sound as in the word off. So we have of and off. And there's also a difference in the consonant. So in the word of, spelled with only one F, the F is actually pronounced like V, of. Don't pronounce it like that, I'm just exaggerating it to show you what the sound is like, of. It's a V sound. And then in the word off, the FF is pronounced like F. Just write off, okay? See the difference? So we have of and off. These might seem like really small differences, but getting good English pronunciation is all about mastering the small differences. Okay, I saw a few words back towards the beginning that were difficult for people, namely the work and world. Both of these are definitely challenging. One thing I want to say about both work and world is they are spelled with an O, but it doesn't really sound like an O. That OR has an er sound, same as in the word bird or, um, heard. That's the past tense of here, heard. So don't try to say wark or anything like that, it doesn't really sound like an O, it sounds like er, work, world. If you can say the word were, like was and were, W-E-R-E, then it's the same sound. Work, world. And I know that the RL in world can be challenging, so what I recommend is try to say it really slow and prolong the R and the L, and just kind of feel the difference, and then you can make it faster and, until you can say it normally. So try to say it like world. Notice how I draw out the R and the L. And then you try to make it a little shorter, world, world, world, world, okay? It just takes practice. It's like lifting weights at the gym. You just have to do it a lot, do it slowly, then try to, you know, increase the difficulty and increase the speed, and you will be able to master these difficult words. Another question I got had to do with accents. So someone asked, a lot of English learners, we try to develop an American accent, but what do we really mean when we talk about an American accent? Does the United States have different accents? And the answer is yes, the United States is a big country, and the accent varies by region. So someone from the Northeast is going to pronounce things differently from someone in the South, or someone in California, or in the middle of the country, the Midwest. There are a lot of different accents in the United States. They vary from state to state, even sometimes city to city. I myself am from the Northeast. I grew up in a state called Connecticut, which is next to New York. So I did not grow up inside New York. I don't have a New York accent, but I have a general, I guess, Northeast United States accent. So what should you try to learn as an English learner? Well, keep in mind that all of these accents are correct. There's not a right or wrong. And in fact, sometimes native English speakers make fun of each other based on the way another native English speaker might say something from a different region of the U.S. So it's not a matter of right and wrong. I don't think that you have to choose one and follow it exclusively. I think that as an English learner, your primary focus should be on making your pronunciation sound clear and understandable, okay? If your pronunciation is clear and other people can understand you, that's the signal that your pronunciation is good and your accent is pretty good. If you're having problems with communication and people are kind of like, what, or they don't really understand, or they ask you to repeat some words, then you know that you might need to work on improving your pronunciation. But it doesn't really matter which American accent you choose to follow because they're all correct. Just work on the clarity and of course, get feedback from people who you're speaking with, your conversation partner or your coworkers or friends. And you know, if people can understand you, you're doing great. If people can't understand you, then keep working on your pronunciation. So how can you pronounce things like a native speaker? Well, some people ask me about the rules of American English pronunciation and this is such a hard question because again, I don't think that's the right thing to focus on. English pronunciation does not have very clear rules like maybe some other languages do. Maybe in your native language, the letter A or its equivalent is always pronounced the same way. But in English, we have the A in cat, which sounds like ah. We have the A in name, which sounds like ay. We have the A in father, which sounds like ah. And then of course, we have different combinations like the A-W in awful, it sounds like aw. And lots of other ones that I can't even think of right now. So I think it is pretty useless to try to study and memorize pronunciation rules. It's a mistake. I mean, we as native speakers, we don't think about pronunciation rules when we're speaking. We learn naturally through imitation, through exposure, through hearing English and imitating it and practicing it, right? So you can do that as an English learner by using the shadowing technique. And shadowing simply means imitating a native speaker. And there's two ways you can do it. You can, the first thing you need is you need an audio or a video of a native English speaker. You can use something from your favorite English teacher or you can use a YouTube video. News is great for this because newscasters often speak pretty clearly. You can use a comedian, you can try someone's speech or someone in a movie. But try to get an audio or video where you have the transcripts, so you also have the words available. And here's how you practice shadowing. The first technique is the pause and repeat technique. And so you would play a little bit, just one short phrase of the audio or video, then pause it and try to repeat it exactly like the native speaker said it. Using the same pronunciation, using the same rhythm, the same speed, and then you play the next little phrase and you pause and you repeat. Play the next phrase, pause and repeat, okay? You're going to make mistakes. It's natural. Remember this is just practice. You can do this privately, alone, nobody else has to hear you. But what you're doing is you're practicing your pronunciation in a very natural way and you're practicing all the different elements. So in addition to the individual words, you're also practicing linking, you know, connecting your words together. You're practicing correct word stress and sentence stress, what to emphasize in each word and in each syllable. So I really like shadowing as a natural way to practice and improve your pronunciation. After you've gone through the audio or video doing the pause and repeat technique, so now you're somewhat familiar with the words, then you can try to do the second exercise which is to play the audio and the video without pausing and try to accompany the native speaker, try to speak together with him or her. This is quite difficult and again, you're going to make mistakes. It's normal. It's even difficult for me as a native speaker to match someone's pronunciation and rhythm exactly but it's just a training exercise and it should be a little easier if you've done the pause and repeat part first. So that's shadowing. You can do it with any audio, any podcast, any video where you also have the text. It's a good idea to do it with the text so that you can just check on the definitions of any words you might not know. I have a course called Shadowing with Shana where I do this, I'll say a phrase and I leave a pause for you to repeat it so if you're interested in that, you can click on the link in the video description for more information about my, I have a pronunciation course which focuses on the sounds of English and then I have a shadowing course which will help you practice that technique I just mentioned. The other thing that you should definitely do as an English learner is always check words in an audio dictionary. So whenever you come across a word you don't know, let's say you're reading a book or you see something on a website and you see a word you don't know, don't just check it in the paper dictionary because as I mentioned before, there are so many exceptions in English spelling and pronunciation that the way you think the word might be pronounced might not actually be the way it's pronounced. So I always recommend listening to the word and you can do that very easily online. One audio dictionary I recommend is called thefreedictionary.com and it's free. When you look up a word there, you'll get the definition, you'll get a few examples and you'll also see a little American flag and a British flag with audio icons and you can click on them to listen to that word pronounced. Really really important because that way practice listening to it, practice repeating it a couple of times so that the correct pronunciation gets into your head because if you only read and you only check words in a paper dictionary, then when it comes time to say them, you might be saying them wrong and you don't even know it or maybe you got the incorrect pronunciation stuck in your head. So always check words in an audio dictionary. Okay, let me take a look at the chat really quickly. So another good difficult word or words, I should say, are words that end with TH and then S. So words like months, that's really hard because we have a TH which is a sound that might not exist in your native language and then followed by an S and that transition can be quite difficult. Months. Remember that for TH, your tongue is between your top and bottom teeth, okay? Do this in the mirror if you have to. I can see myself doing it on camera. Months. Try to take it slow. Months, months, months, months, months. You'll notice that as I say it faster, my tongue is not so prominent and in fact when speaking fast, it might even sound like months, like without the TH, months, three months, six months. The TH is still there. It's just very, very small, very, very quick. Another word is clothes, clothes, like clothing. Same thing. When speaking fast, it might actually sound like clothes, like as in close the door, put on my clothes, take off my clothes. The TH is there, but it's very, very short and when you're listening to a native speaker, you might not even hear it, but try to pronounce it with the TH. TH is an important sound in English in general, so it is important to master this sound so that in other words where the TH is more prominent, like think and anything and let's see, these and those, you want to have that sound correct. When I hear someone pronounce these and those with a D sound, like D's and Do's or pronounces think like sink, that's a giveaway. That makes it obvious that the person is not a native speaker, so definitely work on your TH, but in words like months and clothes, the TH is very, very short, almost inaudible. Okay, let's see what else we got. The word knowledgeable, okay, this is a good one because it has knowledgeable, four syllables. English does have some long words, four or five syllables which can be difficult to pronounce and what I always recommend with these is to just take one syllable at a time, pronounce them each with a little pause between them and then try to connect them together. So for knowledgeable, we have know-le-dge-ble, okay, and the stress is on the first syllable, know, know-le-dge-ble, know-le-dge-ble, know-le-dge-ble, know-le-dge-ble, know-le-dge-ble, okay. If you try to say it fast the first thing, you might mess it up because it's a lot of syllables, it's a lot of consonants in that word, but if you say it slowly with a pause between each syllable and then you try to make it faster and faster, you'll probably be able to do it, okay, it just takes practice. So that actually reminds me of another question I get asked a lot which is how can I speak fast? Some English learners have an idea in their heads that speaking fast is going to make them sound more like a native speaker. And I would encourage you not to think that way, not to try to make your speaking fast because, well, first of all, fast, not every native speaker speaks fast. There's variation in speaking speed among different native speakers. Some people speak, tend to speak faster because that's their personality or that's how they grew up talking and other people tend to speak a little slower. So don't rush and try to speak as fast as you possibly can because you think it's going to make you sound more native. What actually happens is if you speak fast, too fast, two things happen. One, speaking too fast, even for native speakers, gives the impression that you're nervous. If you're in a job interview and you're speaking like and the person is actually having a hard time following you, that's actually not good. The fast speaking is hurting you more than helping you because it makes it sound like you're so nervous that you can't stop and you're not really thinking about what you're saying. The other problem as a non-native speaker is that if your pronunciation is not clear and correct, speaking faster is just going to make you harder to understand. So because of your accent, it's natural that you have an accent when you're learning English. But because of that, if you try to speak too fast, then you're actually going to have more communication problems. It's not going to make you sound like a native speaker. So what do I recommend instead? I recommend focusing on pronouncing things clearly, work on your shadowing, like I said earlier in this lesson, and the speed is going to come naturally. Just as you get more practice, as you get more comfortable, your mouth with the sounds of English and as you get more English, you know, in your mind so that you're thinking directly in English and expressing yourself directly in English, the speed will come naturally. Don't try to force it by trying to speak really fast. Focus on clarity, focus on shadowing and imitating native speakers and you will get faster. You know, another cause of when English learners think that they're speaking too slow is because maybe they're speaking with a lot of pauses and that can be frustrating because you feel like in your native language, you can just speak normally without pausing. But then in English, you have to pause all the time. And there's two reasons that English learners pause when speaking. One is that they are thinking too much about the grammar. They're really overthinking the grammar. And I would encourage you just to relax a little bit. Yes, grammar is important, but spoken English actually has a little more flexible grammar and sentence structure as compared to written English, okay? So it's not essential for everything to be completely perfect. So don't overthink it. The other reason that a lot of English learners pause is because they are thinking in their native language and trying to translate that into English. And then maybe either they don't know the right word or the grammar structure. They're trying to remember the past perfect continuous and it's really hard. I would encourage you, don't think, don't translate. Think directly in English. This is also a skill that you can practice and you can develop it. You can improve it. Just start by thinking really, really simple sentences. And then as you train your mind, you will get better and better at thinking in English in more complex sentences. And then when you're thinking directly in English, you'll be able to express yourself much more easily without pauses, okay? Alrighty. Let's see. We've got the word withdrawal. Okay, so withdraw is a verb. Let's start with withdraw. Withdraw, we often use this verb for taking money out of the bank. You withdraw money from your account. So it's just literally a combination of the words with, which has that TH sound, with, and then draw. So practice them separately. Withdraw, withdraw, withdraw, okay? And then withdrawal is the noun form. So you withdraw money from the bank. You have made a withdrawal. Yeah, that last part, that all, is kind of challenging. It's not a word we say often. Withdrawal. It's kind of just take the word withdraw and and all at the end. Withdrawal, withdrawal, withdrawal. You almost don't hear the W. Let's see. What else have we got? I can't say the word thirsty. It's another good one. Thirsty. Remember to do that TH with your tongue between your teeth. Thirsty, okay? So thir, it's just like in the word third, like third place. Thir-sty, stee, stee, thirsty, thirsty. The difficulty might be caused by trying to say it fast. So try to say it slow, break it down, and practice it slow, and then do it together. Let's see. What else have we got here? Someone asked about the pronunciation of the ED ending. So a lot of regular verbs in English end in ED, like worked, and let's see. Another one that ends in ED, arrived. Now ED actually has three different pronunciations. So in some words, like the word work, the ED actually sounds like T, okay? So we don't say work-ed, we say worked, worked. Notice that the ED just sounds like T, worked. Also in missed, so miss in the present and then missed in the past, as in I missed my flight. It sounds like M-I-S-T, but it's spelled M-I-S-S-E-D, missed, missed. The ED sounds like a T when the last sound in the word is unvoiced. So S is an unvoiced sound, ss, there's no vocal cords, it's just air. And K is also an unvoiced sound, kk, worked, missed. Then, with words, with verbs that end in a voiced sound, like arrived, the ED sounds like just D. So V is a voiced sound, vv, vv, there's, I'm using my vocal cords to make this sound, and we, the ED sounds like D, arrived, arrived. But we don't add an extra syllable, so don't say arrived, okay? That's not correct. We only add an extra syllable for the ED if the word, if the previous word ends in T or D. So this would be like the word started, okay? So start has one syllable in the present, and then in the past, started, started, started, has two syllables. Or decide ends in D, that has two syllables, and then in the past, decided, decided. So if you look on my YouTube channel, you will find, I think it's in the pronunciation playlist, there's two videos on this topic where there's lots of different words. I actually have one called 105 words that end in ED, which will give you a lot of practice with these three different sounds in English. All right. I'm going to save the rest of these difficult words for a future lesson, but I really appreciate you joining me today. Again, if you want more practice and more training, you can take my pronunciation course, and I also have a shadowing course. With both of those courses, not only do you get to practice, but at the end of each one, there's an evaluation. So you can send me your speaking, and I'll correct the pronunciation, and send you some tips for improvement. Also tell you what you're doing well, and what you could improve. So if you're interested in that, click on the link in the video description for more information about that. And if you enjoyed this video, and you learned something from it, please like it and share it so that other English students can benefit as well. Thank you for spending some time with me today. I hope you enjoyed today's live class. Bye for now.