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Practicing correct pronunciation on
your own
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Even after you have
learned how to pronounce the words in your target language, you will
have to continue practicing. Saying foreign words is, in part, a sort
of "athletic" activity, in that correct pronunciation can only be
achieved if we make the effort to position our mouth, lips and tongue
in a certain way - and that way is often quite different from that
which we use to say words in English.
Take the Spanish "D" or "T", for instance. Spaniards
place their tongues between their teeth when they pronounce
these sounds, something an English-speaker would never do for
these letters; we only do it for our "th" sound. Or the French "u"
sound (which is very similar to the German "ü"). To correctly
utter this vowel sound, you form you lips as though you were going to
whistle, and then try to say an "ee" sound (as in our word "seem"). The
proper French "u" can only be said if the lips are in that
almost-closed "whistling" position. Of course, we don't have this sound
in English.
Knowing how to form the sounds in the foreign language you are learning isn't enough. You
must be able to immediately and spontaneously produce
them whenever you speak that language. In other words, you must
train yourself to achieve proper articulation automatically, without
having to think about it. This is at times no easy task, since when
you speak a foreign language, you must concentrate mainly on what
you want to say, on the necessary words and on the correct grammar. If,
on top of all this, you also have to think about pronunciation, there's
a good chance that one of these elements will come up short. Therefore,
you should try to do some pronunciation training every day
so that speaking correctly becomes second nature to you. The following
is an exercise that will help you to greatly improve
your pronunciation, and keep it "in shape".
Get a book in your target language, preferably
something that is not too far beyond your reading ability, and that
deals with a subject that is of interest to you (it's always easier to
pick up and read a book that you like, isn't it?). If you are a
beginner, you might want to pay a native speaker to record a few pages
of the book for you, so that you can hear how the text should sound.
Or, you can purchase an audio-book in your target language, and get the
written text as well. Plan to read a few paragraphs from that
book every day, following these instructions:
- You will read aloud for five to seven minutes. It's
obvious why you should do this, is it not? After all, you want to
practice pronunciation, and that's not easy to do if you don't actually
say the words!
- Read very slowly, at least three times slower than
normal, speaking in "slow motion", and exaggerate every
sound in every word you say. You will try to pronounce each
sound in each word as perfectly as possible, that is, as close
to a native speaker's pronunciation as you can.
Perhaps you have seen that strange exercise they
make people do in acting school: they tell you to hold a pen between
your teeth, and while doing so, to read a text. Sounds ridiculous,
doesn't it? After all, it is completely impossible to pronounce
the words well with a pen in your mouth. But this exercise does, of
course, make very good sense: the point is to help you become
aware of how the mouth should move to enunciate a
word perfectly. That pen in your mouth forces you to strain the muscles
of your mouth, lips and tongue in order to try to make your words
understandable. By doing so, you become conscious of which muscles must
be put into play to produce the various sounds. After a couple of
minutes of this, when you take the pen out of your mouth, you will see
that you can suddenly pronounce the words much more precisely than you
could before you did the "pen" exercise. (Try it out; you'll see what I
mean!)
There's no need to employ the "pen trick" when
reading in your new language. Nonetheless, you should strive to
articulate every word with decisiveness, clarity and great precision.
Don't hurry: as I mentioned before, you should speak very
slowly. Read about 3 minute's worth of text, then repeat it, attempting
to improve on the first reading (if you are at a more advanced level,
you can read 5-7 minute's worth of text without repeating.)
- Do this every day, without fail. (well, if you do skip a day,
don't worry, it's no disaster. Just be sure you start again the
following day.)
After only a few weeks, you will notice that when
you read in your target language at a faster, more "normal" speed, your
pronunciation will have improved significantly. Nonetheless, keep up
this exercise, preferably making it a regular habit. You'll see that
the rewards you reap will make it well worth your while.
Next: 13) View the world through rose-colored glasses
- visit another country!
Write to
David at:
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