Embarrassed due to a mispronounced word?

Not long ago, one of my students shared with me a funny, but slightly embarrassing story regarding mispronunciation. She wanted to thank the technician who was fixing something in her house. But instead of “thank you for your patience,” what came out of her mouth was “thank you for your passion.” The guy looked perplexed and she was embarrassed.

The problem with many English classes is that they don’t teach pronunciation. They focus on other aspects of the language such as grammar and vocabulary, but teaching students how to pronounce different sounds is not a priority. This may be because many nonnative teachers of English as a foreign language don’t feel comfortable teaching pronunciation. Even teachers whose first language is English often feel unqualified to teach pronunciation because they lack the necessary training.

But pronunciation is crucial to communication because if certain sounds are mispronounced, the meaning of the intended word might change. For example, my student, who ended up saying passion instead of patience, mispronounced the first vowel and dropped the final consonant.

What is an accent?

An accent is the way we pronounce different sounds when we speak. Even within a group of people sharing the same native language, someone might be considered to be speaking with an accent because they grew up in a different area of the country. But there is also a foreign accent. This occurs when people apply the rules and sounds of their native language when they speak another language. For example, many languages don’t have the English th (/θ/, /ð/) sound and many nonnative speakers substitute it for t, d, f, v, s, or z.

Foreign accent vs. pronunciation

Accent and pronunciation are often used interchangeably. However, you don’t have to be a native speaker to have good pronunciation. Pronunciation is the ability to pronounce sounds and words in an intelligible way so that the intended meaning is conveyed. And while you can still have a foreign accent, your pronunciation could be meticulous.

The reason for mispronunciation

In addition to other sounds that are absent in many other languages (like th or the English r), English is known for its large number of vowels. It has more vowels than many other languages and this makes it confusing to many nonnative speakers whose first languages have only five or six vowels (a, e, i, o, u, for example). English also has consonant clusters that are uncommon for many Asian speakers. But if consonants are dropped or mispronounced, the end result might be a completely different word. And, needless to say, this can lead to misunderstandings.

When adults learn how to speak a foreign language, they tend to bring the knowledge from their native language to the target language. According to research, this happens because by early childhood, a solid foundation of the native language phonology is already formed, and these sounds serve as a reference point for decoding the sounds of other languages that are learned later in life.

Pronunciation can be improved

While for most people, after a certain age (usually after puberty) it’s nearly impossible (I rarely use the word impossible, but this is what experts in the field claim) to completely get rid of their foreign accent, they can still improve their pronunciation with some training. Proper pronunciation is important not only for clarity in communication, but also the speaker’s self-esteem. According to a study, when non-native speakers have exposure to pronunciation classes they experience benefits such as increase of confidence, improvement of listening skills, and gaining useful tools that include the ability to self-correct when needed. After some pronunciation training, many people say that they feel more knowledgeable and confident.

Five steps to improving your pronunciation

Below I discuss five steps that I have personally followed in order to improve my pronunciation.

1. Find out what sounds are different

The first step to improving your pronunciation is to analyze the difference in the sounds between both languages. If some sounds from the English language are missing in your native language, it could make it harder for you to even hear them. For instance, in English there are two types of i – the one that is in the word ship /ʃɪp/, and the other one that is in the word sheep /ʃip/ But if you only have one i in your native language, you might not hear the difference between the two when people speak. As a result you might end up mispronouncing words that have this sound.

I remember when many years ago in one of my ESL classes, I told my teacher that something funny had happened and I “lafft” /lʌft/. When I saw the puzzled look on her face, I kept repeating the same word and didn’t know why she was still confused. Then she suddenly figured out what I’d been trying to communicate. “Oh, laughed,” /læft/ she said. I must admit that back then I was irritated. I couldn’t understand why it took my teacher so long to understand a word that I thought I was pronouncing well. But by messing up the vowel, I made it unintelligible for my teacher to understand.

So find out what English sounds are different or non-existent in your language and focus on learning how to pronounce them. A good way to start is to familiarize yourself with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It is an alphabetic system that describes every individual sound. Learning it will help you search the dictionary for the proper pronunciation of a word. And even if you have no one to ask, knowing how to read the IPA will give you the confidence that you have the correct pronunciation. You can also google the IPA chart of your native language (e.g., Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Polish,  Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Urdu) and compare it to the English chart.

The next step is learning each sound’s place and manner of articulation. That is, where in the mouth the tongue should be when pronouncing a particular vowel or consonant, and how exactly are sounds produced. There is plenty of information on this topic online. You can also take a pronunciation course if you want a deeper guidance.

2. Pay attention to intonation

Intonation is a feature of pronunciation that is present in every language. It is the melody of the language that makes your speech fit into the cultural norms and listeners’ expectations. But regular ESL classes typically don’t cover intonation. It is partly because it is harder to teach it, and partly because many teachers didn’t (and some still don’t) believe that teaching any part of pronunciation is important. Intonation, however, is very important because, if misused, your intentions might be misunderstood.

To acquaint yourself with American intonation, listen to people speaking and notice how they are saying things. You can listen to friends, colleagues, people in the mall or on the street. If you don’t live in an English-speaking country, you can watch movies or YouTube videos. Listen carefully and analyze how people are using intonation to express a certain thought or feeling. For example, the sentence “thank you for helping me out” depending on the way it is said can indicate gratitude or sarcasm. Try to pick on the nuances.

Using the correct intonation will make you sound more natural and culturally acclimatized.

3. Pay attention to word stress

Using correct word stress might be exceptionally challenging to people whose native languages have fixed stress. In Polish, for example, most of the words have their primary stress on the syllable before the last one. Thus, when some Polish people speak English, they sometimes stress on the wrong syllable. For example, some Poles pronounce words like phoTOgrapher /fəˈtɑɡɹəfɚ/ and MAnager /ˈmænɪdʒɚ/ as photoGRApher /fətɑˈɡɹəfɚ/ and maNAger /mæˈnɪdʒɚ/. This might be confusing to the listener.

According to some studies, primary stress is very important when it comes to comprehensibility. Even if you pronounce every sound correctly, but you stress on the wrong syllable, a person might need some time to understand what you are trying to say.

When you learn a new word, in addition to the vowels and consonants, pay attention to the word stress as well. The syllable with the primary stress is always a little longer, louder, and higher in pitch. So try to listen to words and detect their primary stress. Then repeat them many times.

4. Pay attention to sentence stress

In sentences in English, some words are stressed and some are reduced. This means that certain words are more prominent than others. And while word stress is putting more importance on one syllable within a single word, sentence stress gives more prominence to certain words within a sentence.

To understand what words you want to stress on, look at a sentence and find all the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These are your content words. That is, words that give a meaning to your sentence. The rest of the words that are there in order to keep the grammatical structure (prepositions, articles, conjunctions, pronouns) are the function words. Because the function words don’t carry any meaning on their own, they are reduced.

For example, let’s look at the sentence:

I’m reading a book on a sunny day.

If we only say the content words:

reading book sunny day

we are going to end up with a sentence that is not grammatically correct, but we can still make sense of it. On the other hand, if we only say:

a, on, a

– the function words in this sentence – it will be impossible to find any meaning in them. So these words will be reduced. Of course, there are always exceptions when you want to highlight a word in order to convey a particular meaning.

Learning how to correctly stress and reduce words will give a natural flow to your speech. It will also make it easier for your listeners to follow your thoughts.

5. Record and listen to yourself

If you are mispronouncing a sound or stressing on a word that shouldn’t be stressed, it may be hard to detect it while you are speaking. Recording and listening to yourself is a great way to spot any mistakes you might be making. I know that most people cringe when they hear a recording of their own voice. But the more you do it, the more you get used to it. After a while, you won’t find it weird anymore and you will be able to analyze your own speech the way you analyze the speech of others.

Even now, after having lived in the US for almost 20 years, I still record myself on a regular basis. I only do a few minutes, but I keep it consistent. I just push the record button and talk about what I am thinking at the moment. Becoming my own coach has given me a sense of control and has made me more self-confident.

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How about you? Do you have any pronunciation challenges? What have you done to overcome them? Share with me in the comments.

Remember to join our free Speaking club. A language is meant to be spoken, and there is a reason why the other word for “language” is “tongue.” In the Speaking Club, you will meet incredible people from all over the world who come to practice their speaking skills.

 

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