How to pronounce words in English

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To learn pronunciation, you must learn to listen first. It can be a great challenge at times, but it doesn’t have to be something unattainable.

Below, we’re going to offer you some tips and advice on how to improve your pronunciation. You just need to be in the right mood, stay positive, and follow our advice.

In addition, we’ll give you a guide on all the available resources, so that you can be successful.

How to improve your English pronunciation

The most important way to improve your English pronunciation is to practice. You’ve probably heard this too many times, but there are no shortcuts when it comes to learning. The good thing is that, thanks to the internet, it’s not difficult to access information or tips.

There are a wide variety of alternatives and resources, but your pronunciation and progress will mainly depend on the time you invest in practicing. Here are some tips that will help you, even if you only have limited time to study:

Help from a friend

One of the easiest ways to improve your pronunciation is to find a family member or friend who speaks English so that they can help you.

You can speak to them in English and when they hear your pronunciation, if they’re experienced, they’ll easily be able to tell you where your weaknesses and mistakes are.

Videos

Videos are a great tool in this digital age. You can search YouTube for videos of people speaking English and try to repeat what they say. These can be videos about general topics that you like or videos that are more focused on learning English.

On the ABA English channel, for example, you’ll find several videos specifically designed to help you improve your pronunciation while learning new concepts in English. These video classes are brief lessons where our native teachers explain grammar concepts in a fun and entertaining way.

Every time you watch a video, you can try to imitate exactly what you hear, paying careful attention to the movement of the lips, the gestures, and the tones of voice that are used.

Music

Another way to improve your pronunciation, perhaps the most enjoyable, is to sing and listen to music. Find songs you like in English and release your inner star!

Sing your heart out, but try to do it just like the artist. It doesn’t matter if you don’t sing well, the important thing is to copy the pronunciation. You can even make it more fun by having a karaoke session.

Films

If you’re more into cinema, films are an excellent alternative. Watching films in English and repeating what they say will help improve your pronunciation. If you like acting or would like to have a laugh with friends, then do some role-playing. This can be a very entertaining experience if you know how to make the most of it.

And if you haven’t tried the films from ABA English yet, now is the time. Our ABA Films are funny, short films that show you everyday situations and help you to improve your pronunciation by listening to different accents.

Study phonetics

Another way to improve your pronunciation is to know exactly how words should be pronounced, that is, to study English phonetics.

Phonetics is a way of explaining how a word sounds and examples are also provided, for example, the word cup is pronounced using a relaxed tongue that is low in the mouth.

Thanks to the advances made through the internet, improving your pronunciation isn’t that difficult, it just takes some research and a bit of time. But if you still don’t have much free time, no problem!

With ABA English you have so many options so that, if you have limited free time, you can even listen to our lessons before going to sleep.

These are very useful if you work all day, if you have kids, or if you have a lot of things to do. With the Chill Out Learning method, you can practice your pronunciation with 5-minute lessons just before going to sleep. They’re short but very precise so you can improve your English. Go for it!

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How to practice your English pronunciation

The best thing about learning a new language is that you can practice it at almost any time of day. Some people put notes or small pieces of paper on objects with the English translation to help them study. However, there are many more tips that can help you to practice your English pronunciation on a daily basis.

Talk, talk, talk

The best way to practice your pronunciation is by talking. Don’t be afraid to participate in forums, events, groups, or meetings to expose yourself to the language. This will help you improve and refine your listening skills.

Tongue twisters

Tongue twisters can help you practice your pronunciation. Tongue twisters are sentences, songs, or poems that have a special rhyme with certain types of words that are difficult to pronounce when said together. There are different tongue twisters depending on your level of English.

Have you heard this one? I wish you were a fish in my dish. Be a fish in my dish, please.

Here, the ‘s’ and ‘sh’ at the end of the words are used to create a challenging tongue twister. It may take a while at first, but as you practice, you’ll improve.

Social networks

Social media is also a good aid because it allows you to make friends of all ages and languages, anywhere in the world. You can connect with study groups and practice with them.

ABA English offers you the opportunity to train your ear with live classes via YouTube and Facebook. You’ll also have content and exercises to practice every day.

Podcasts

Podcasts are audio recordings about general topics. Those made for English learners are very useful for practicing since they’re designed to allow the student to learn through practice. On our SoundCloud channel, we have a variety of podcasts with lessons on grammar, vocabulary, and much more.

In addition, Live English is a section on our app that offers you a variety of tools. These include the Wake Up podcasts, aimed at motivating you when you wake up, along with our Chill Out Learning classes that you can listen to just before you go to sleep.

Remember that to achieve anything, you must want to do so. With all the tools at your disposal, you can study and advance at your own pace without interfering with your daily activities or obligations.

How to search for the pronunciation of a text in English

Sometimes, while practicing, you might want to know how the thing you’re reading sounds to know how to spell it correctly. Searching for the pronunciation of a text in English isn’t as difficult as it seems. There are programs, videos, and podcasts, among others, but one immediate and effective tool is Google.

Our best friend, Google

Google can help with this. Google Translate offers the option of reproducing a text in any language. Just enter the text, set the language you want to hear, and in the bottom left corner of the text box, you’ll find a small loudspeaker. Click it and you’re done!

Text-to-speech conversion programs

Even though Google Translate is the fastest tool, there are other tools that are a little more accurate and possibly have a more neutral accent. On the internet, you can find many programs that could be useful for this, just enter the text or the word and it’s automatically translated.

YouTube and SoundCloud

Websites such as YouTube and SoundCloud offer a wide variety of videos and audio files to help you with the pronunciation of texts. You just have to train your ear very well and remember to repeat everything exactly as you hear it, with gestures and sounds.

At ABA English, we also offer videos, audios, films, and much more through our YouTube and SoundCloud channels. The content is designed to allow you to quickly and easily recognise the pronunciation of the words and to practice them at the same time.

How to write the pronunciation of English words

Writing out the pronunciation of English words is quite a complex task. In fact, most problems that some people have with the English language are often caused by the difference between the pronunciation of words and the way they’re written.

That’s why we recommend, besides practice, that you learn the rules of English phonetics.

Phonetics is the part of language that studies how the language sounds. In English, it’s very important to know phonetics because learning the correct pronunciation of words depends on it.

Depending on their phonetics, some letters in words may be silent or sound differently. It will all depend on the words themselves.

Most non-native speakers learning English face pronunciation difficulties with the diphthongs, the English ‘r’, or the terrible ‘s’. Terrible may be an exaggeration, but it’s a bit difficult to pronounce the ‘s’ correctly in English because in many languages it’s simply not pronounced as vigorously.

For other students, pronouncing the ‘th’ correctly is sometimes a problem as well. But don’t worry, as always, it’s all a matter of practice.

There’s one important aspect that we need to emphasise about phonetics. There are two sets of phonetics, which will depend on the type of English you’re learning. Depending on the region, you can learn British English or American English pronunciation. The accent and even some words change between these two types of English.

Learning phonetics in English will help you to write down the pronunciation of words much more easily.

How good is your English pronunciation?

Singing in English, talking to the mirror, doing our own role plays, or speaking to our friends and family in English is certainly a lot of fun, but how do we know if we’re doing it right? Or if we’re on the right track?

You can always determine the quality of your pronunciation yourself, but it would be best to seek help from more experienced people. If those helpers could be teachers or native speakers of the language, it would be much better. No matter what, you can follow these tips:

To determine for yourself if you’re pronouncing something correctly in English, you can record your voice while reading or speaking and listen to it later. This will help you to see what your weaknesses are and where you’ve made mistakes.

At ABA English, we use LRC technology (Listen, Record, and Compare) for pronunciation exercises in our course. This technology allows you to record your voice, play it back, and compare it with the correct ways of pronouncing the words..

If you want to test your pronunciation even further, you can choose a dialogue that someone else, an actor or a singer, has recorded and imitate it. You can record your voice and then compare the audios, both of which should sound as similar as possible.

To help you even more, you can read the English content found on the ABA English blog. Our articles are designed so that, by reading them aloud, you can improve your pronunciation while getting useful tips, guidance, and advice.

While you can correct yourself, we recommend you get someone who is experienced in English to correct you. A person with an advanced knowledge of English will tell you what your mistakes are and how to fix them correctly.

At ABA English, we offer private classes with native teachers who will guide you through the process of understanding your own pronunciation. They’ll help you with any mistakes you may make through detailed explanations, examples, and advice, personalised just for you.

On our platform, you can get the help you’re looking for to find out if your pronunciation is good or not. Through our courses, we offer you all the information you want and need to know. All you have to do is go ahead and take the first step towards learning English.

By applying these tips, learning to pronounce in English will be a more enjoyable experience. And, depending on your effort and motivation, it can even be fun. Additionally, at ABA English, we’ll always be there to support you on this path of learning. Download our app today to enjoy all our pronunciation resources.

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