Chosen pronunciation model: British English
In order to improve my intonation I have been listening to the podcasts of the British Council. I liked these podcasts very much, as besides the interesting topics they offered a great opportunity of spoken input too.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/professionals-podcast-english-listening-downloads-archive.htm
My next - supposedly long term - aim is to acquire the musicality and rhythm of the English language. In order to do so, I have started listening to http://www.ted.com/
where I not only find very interesting lectures, speeches and interviews but I can also study the transcript and with the Ben Franklin method I can learn how to use my voice when speaking in English. Apart from this, I have read that exaggerating the stress and the intonation can be very helpful for beginner pronunciation learners, so that they get used to the proper sound of the language, so I decided to give it a try.
As I have been searching for pronunciation exercises, I encountered some really funny tongue twisters provided by the British Council. They are quite a challenge and worth trying!
http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/tongue-twisters
Though the best pronunciation challenge is definitely the poem The Chaos by Gerard Nost Trenité. I know this amazing poem from grammar school, where I attended an English drama club. We divided the poem into smaller sections and performed it on a Talent Day. It was great fun practising it and we were so proud of what we learnt of the English pronunciation!
Posts mit dem Label pronunciation werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label pronunciation werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Samstag, 18. Januar 2014
Pronunciation Diary 1 - Sounds
Chosen pronunciation model: British English
My pronunciation problems might stem from the problem that when I started to learn English, acquiring the right sounds and learning the exact position of the tongue and lips when producing them was never really explained to me.
As time went by, I managed to master the pronunciation of most consonants. However, I still have some serious problems with differentiating vowels, such as:
/æ/ cat, /e/ met; /ə/ away, /ɒ/ rock, /ɔ:/ call
I have been practising them with the help of the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/), though me producing these sounds is still far from perfect.
What I find especially complicated is pronouncing the words beginning with 'e-' or 'ex-'.
For example /ɪɡˈzɑːmpl/, extreme /ɪkˈstriːm/, exfoliate /eksˈfəʊlieɪt/ are all pronounced differently.
Concerning consonants, I had not been sure how to distinguish between 'V' and 'W' but since I watched Ronnie's video about it, it causes no problem any more.
I found Rachel's video concerning the 'TH' sounds also very helpful, as it explained the differences perfectly.
My pronunciation problems might stem from the problem that when I started to learn English, acquiring the right sounds and learning the exact position of the tongue and lips when producing them was never really explained to me.
As time went by, I managed to master the pronunciation of most consonants. However, I still have some serious problems with differentiating vowels, such as:
/æ/ cat, /e/ met; /ə/ away, /ɒ/ rock, /ɔ:/ call
I have been practising them with the help of the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/sounds/), though me producing these sounds is still far from perfect.
What I find especially complicated is pronouncing the words beginning with 'e-' or 'ex-'.
For example /ɪɡˈzɑːmpl/, extreme /ɪkˈstriːm/, exfoliate /eksˈfəʊlieɪt/ are all pronounced differently.
Concerning consonants, I had not been sure how to distinguish between 'V' and 'W' but since I watched Ronnie's video about it, it causes no problem any more.
I found Rachel's video concerning the 'TH' sounds also very helpful, as it explained the differences perfectly.
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)

