live-english.net - Tag Archive - pronunciation

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Business English: Chinese cars to enter European markets

January 8th, 2012 | Posted by glenn in Business English - (0 Comments)

 Because I am a car fan, here is a story about the car industry.  Listen to the sentences and fill in the missing words.  The missing words might be new to you but try to guess the word(s) and how to spell them.  This is very good practice to help you deal with new words.
http://www.euronews.net/2011/11/29/china-on-road-to-europe-with-new-car/

Listening practice

China’s Chery Quantam auto has _____1______  the design of its first car which it hopes will ______2_______  in Europe.

The model, Qoros, is the result of a _______3_______  between China’s biggest car manufacturer and investment firm Israel Corp.

The makers aim to ________4________  and export Chinese cars to Western Europe.

It will ________5__________  markets by late 2013.

 

The answers are listed below.

Sounding good

Now, use these sentences to practice your intonation. 

  •        Make sure that you say the words correctly and stress the words in the same place as the speaker does.  (pronunciation and word intonation)
  •        Try to stress the same words as the speaker in each sentence.  (sentence intonation)
  •        Try to break the speech in the same places as the speaker in the video does. 
  •        Now, try to match the speed of the speaker.

This is the best way to improve your speaking so don’t give up until you are happy with it and if you need some advice, contact one of our teachers.

  

Answers

  1.        unveiled
  2.        break new ground
  3.        joint venture
  4.        reverse a trend
  5.        hit European and Chinese

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Improving your American accent

December 10th, 2011 | Posted by glenn in Improving your English - (0 Comments)

Ever wanted to sound like an American?   Here are three rules that will help you to improve your American accent and impress your friends.  Read through the rules and practice saying the words with these rules.  But most importantly, keep your ears open and try to tell if someone that you meet comes from the UK or the US.  Hearing the difference will help you to create that difference for yourself (whichever accent you choose to follow).

1)            Hold the T and drop the vowel.

Words that have a T and an N, such as cotton, smitten and rotten are pronounced with a “ton”, “tin” or a “ten” sound in British English where the “tt” is clearly pronounced as a “T” sound.  Pronounced with a general American accent, this “T” is held and the vowel sound is dropped so it is pronounced more like “cot-n”.

When we pronounce a “T” sound, with British accent, you would touch the roof of your mouth with your tongue.  You would release your tongue and then touch again for the “N” sound.  With an American accent, you would hold your tongue there for the “T” and “N” sounds.

Try saying words like cotton, smitten, rotten, button, mutton and mitten.

2)            Always pronounce the R

In British English, the tendency is to drop the “R” sound at the end and in the middle of words.  In American English, these words are rounded off with the “R” sound.

Try saying the words car, far, fourth, carton and start.

3)            Vowels + L make two syllables

Words like feel and real are often pronounced by foreigners with just one sound which makes them sound more like “fill”.  To pronounce these naturally, try making two sounds.

•             Feel sounds more like “fee-ill”

•             Real sounds like “Re-ill”

Try saying words like feel, real, meal school, fool, and tool.

Take a little time to practice these and you will be well on your way to improving your American accent.

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Improving your pronunciation

September 12th, 2011 | Posted by glenn in Improving your English - (0 Comments)

Improving your English pronunciation is all about practice.  Most people practice by taking individual sounds that they have trouble with and practicing them in isolation (alone).  If you do this though, it is important to then practice them in real words and sentences.  Do not just do isolation practice or it will not help you to change your habit to the correct way of saying it.

Steps to improving your pronunciation in English

First , you need to find the sounds that give you problems.  Here is a list of the consonant sounds:

b (bad), d (done), f (find), g (give), h (hello), y (yellow), k (cat), l (little), m (man), n (no), ng (sing), p (pen), r (red), s (sun), sh (she), t (tea), ch (check), th (think), th (this), v (voice), w (wet), z (zoo), z (pleasure), j (jug)

Most errors in pronunciation just come from sounds that are different to your first language so the sounds that you have trouble with are probably the sounds that don’t exist in or are different in your mother tongue.If you are unsure about any of these sounds, get your teacher to go through them with you.  Pronunciation is best done with a teacher first.

If you are having trouble distinguishing between two sounds, we usually use what we call minimal pairs to practice the difference.  This is where you take two words and the only difference between the two words is the sound you want to practice.  So if you are having trouble with L and R for example, you would practice saying LIGHT and RIGHT.

Putting the sounds into words

Now that you have the individual sounds right, it is time to practice the words.  You can do this through listening.  Listening is the key to pronunciation but almost as important is practicing making the sounds for yourself.  So listen and note down words that you hear that are different to how you say them.  Take that list to your teacher each week and spend a couple of minutes practicing.  If you do this on a regular basis, you will improve very quickly.

Where’s the stress?

The last thing to note is intonation.  This is where you put the stress in a word.  Every word has one stress (sometimes they have a secondary but it is not as pronounced).  Listen to each word and try to get the stress in the right place but be careful because it often changes.  Look at these words and say them out loud:

  • Photograph
  • Photography
  • Photographer

The first word has the stress on the first syllable – PHO to graph.  The longer words have their stress on the second syllable – pho TOG rapher, pho TOG raphy.  It changes as the word length changes.

Listening for intonation in the word will help you to get that stress in the right place.

Remember, listening is the key, practice is important and the person who has the experience to help you to find the fastest way to change your habits is your native-English teacher.

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Improving your speaking fluency in English

August 13th, 2011 | Posted by glenn in Improving your English - (0 Comments)

For a lot of people, the most important thing about studying a language is improving their fluency.  It is nice to have a good understanding of grammar but it is better to be able to show it off by speaking really well.  So, let’s have a look at what it takes to speak well.

Fluency means having a smooth conversation.  We do this by reducing the number of communication breakdowns in the conversation.  Communication breakdowns can come from speaking and listening but let’s look at four ways to reduce speaking breakdowns: correct grammar, natural speaking speed, correct vocabulary and clear pronunciation .

Step one: Making correct sentences.

Often, we feel more comfortable using grammar that we are familiar with.  When you are out with friends, this is the grammar that gets the most practice because you can use it quickly and easily.  However, it is the grammar that you have learnt but don’t practice much that gives you the most opportunity for improvement.  Practice this grammar and expand the circle of grammars that you use often.

Step two: Making them at natural speed.

This means practice, practice, practice.  Practice making sentences in a variety of ways.  This means making negatives, questions and passive sentences.  Change the tense to make past, present and future sentences.

Then, when you are comfortable making sentences in different ways, make them faster.  Speed work helps you to feel more confident in making sentences easily at the speed that English speakers expect to hear them.

Step three: Choose the correct words.

Be careful when you use a dictionary because often a word has feeling as well as meaning.  The words cool and cold for example have similar meanings but if I say that the weather is cool, I like it.  If I say it is cold, I don’t.

Step four: Listen and correct the sounds.

Conversation goes a lot smoother if you can reduce the number of breakdowns that happen when the listener doesn’t understand your speech.  You can reduce these by listening to how native English speakers say these words.  Listen carefully though.  Listen for the sounds that are different to your language, listen to which part of the sentence the speaker says with emphasis and which part they say with no emphasis (or don’t say at all), listen to the rhythm of the sentences.

If you can mimic these things, you will sound more natural and be easier to understand.

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