English Pronunciation Mistakes to Avoid | Improve English Speaking

hi everybody welcome back to our weekly live stream my name is Alicia and in today's live lesson I'm going to talk about English pronunciation tips so I have chosen some common pronunciation mistakes that I hear from students I'm going to talk about those mistakes show you some example words and then try to give some tips about how to practice and/or fix these mistakes there's a lot to talk about today and for this lesson of course I can't see everybody and tell you when your pronunciation is correct or not but I hope that these can help you at home as you practice with media and with your speaking partners so we're going to begin shortly Facebook is up great hi Facebook send something in the chat when you arrive in the chat so we know you're there and of course don't forget to like the video as you find it so other people can view hey YouTube I see you YouTube Fernando and Ronnie and Lolo and Marian and Lynne and oh great hi everybody thanks very much for joining us again this week great oh there you are again hi Jen and Romualdo and Gabriel and solo and Ed got hello okay great so we'll begin the lesson the proper lesson in a couple minutes but before we start as everyone joins a quick announcement we have a new kind of prototype a sort of test video that is on the YouTube channel it went on the YouTube channel yesterday so we're trying kind of like a monthly review so like new things you can find on the website for example or like new videos new things for people to check to help them with their English studies this is news I think there's yeah so I tweeted about it on the way here this morning but this is a new thing it's hard to see but it's a monthly review a monthly review so if you have not seen this yet you can check this out there's one really cool thing I'm excited about with this sort of project and that is that we have like this new it's like this picture right here it's hard to see so you can check this out but this is a viewer response option for the first time I think so if you want to like practice your English maybe have a chance to kind of interact with the other English like learning community through a link on this video and on this page there's a viewer response option so you can like make us a video or like send a photo or something like that so check that out if you're interested in participating you can find this on the YouTube channel the English class 101 youtube channel so please have a look at this okay so that's our one announcement for today then if you're just joining us today's topic is English pronunciation I'm going to talk about some English pronunciation mistakes and hopefully some ways to fix those or at least to practice fixing those so if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube thanks make sure to like and share the video we really appreciate it if you're watching on Instagram I will try not to forget you today but if you want to see everything I would recommend checking the Facebook or the YouTube stream okay so with the announcements out of the way let's get started on today's topic today's topic I have kind of separated into roughly three groups sort of there's a lot to explain so I'm going to try to introduce some vocabulary words I hope can help you with pronunciation one big point all of today's pronunciation points are American English focused so I am an American English speaker I'm going to talk about American English pronunciation I'm not going to talk about British English pronunciation so please try to remember that today there might be some differences depending on the region of the world that the English is spoken in this is going to be American focused so with that said let's get started I want to begin over here with this point so some of these are kind of like verses points so in this case my first verses is the th sound versus the s sound so th verses s so let's start I want to start by talking about this th sound so we have two kinds of th sounds actually the first one is this this example these are three example where it's here like think and teeth and bath so when we make these sounds it's like our tongue comes kind of between our teeth a little bit think and teeth and bath so that motion of the tongue being between the teeth is a bit stronger then you'll hear with these words so the second type of th sound is a similar sound but your tongue is just pressed against the back of your teeth it doesn't come between the teeth so some examples of this are this that these those so the tongue doesn't come between the teeth it stays against the back of your teeth so this is kind of a key a key pronunciation mistake or one that I noticed people have difficulty with because mispronouncing this th sound right here in these words in the first group can sound like these words which use an S sound so for example people who have trouble making the th sound that first sound make an S sound a lot of the time instead of think they say sink sink it's a sound which is incorrect you need to make sure to practice making that sound so to practice this sound how should I do this I should I go to this camera I don't know to practice this sound this is gonna be funny you have to practice this sound and to do this you need to put your tongue okay over here okay okay hi I'll go to this camera that's twice your color sorry sorry is that better okay is it okay alright so to practice this daddy should put your tongue between your teeth it's hard to see on the big camera are they gonna see that yeah so we'll go to yeah hey welcome to camera two okay to do this to make this down you want to put your tongue between your teeth like this and then make the sound so practice this like try it right now if you haven't ever practiced this before actually if you laughed like many of my students actually laugh when I tell them to do this because it feels really strange if you're not used to doing it like that the sound but that's correct that's the sound that you should make so lots of my students laugh when I tell them this but I'll stop them in lessons just to get them to practice making this sound because it does feel strange it's like the first time you ride a bicycle you know it feels totally weird because it's not something you're used to doing but you need to practice doing that okay we'll come back to this one so try that to practice this th sound that think teeth bath sound to make that sound quite clearly so that when you make this sound think we don't mistake it for its ink in this case or here teeth if you don't pronounce this th sound in teeth it can sound like piece or something similar bath can sound like bus which is also a vowel related problem okay so when you've practiced this sound this kind of stronger th sound with the tongue between the teeth a bit more you can kind of like a level down the intensity sort of when you make this one this that these those it's the same tongue position but your tongue doesn't come between your teeth it's just against the back of your teeth so this that these those if you don't pronounce this sound correctly it could make like another s sound though not quite as strong so like to compare an S sound is much much like it has like Hisss almost so it's like sister or sat or see or so so that's quite different from a this or that or these or those so practice making that th sound this first type first I would recommend start here and then kind of like as you relax into making that sound clearly you can work on making this sound faster and faster so I know that this is hard many of you have said this is hard to say like in quick speech just try to practice okay good if you have any questions let me know though today is going to be kind of lots of practice anything okay so that's the first pair I want to talk about the second pair I want to talk about for today is it's in today's lesson thumbnail actually it's this oops me versus s that's very creative me versus V V versus V is the second versus I want to talk about today so uh first let's take a look at this V sound so the B sound it's a sound we make we put our lips together and curl them in so mmm it's it's like you're curling your lips inward and then you release it to make the B sound but but so example words to practice are like back big ball black big Batman so you can use these but these strong starting B sounds to practice making that sound so the common mistake that I hear with these B and V sounds is not with BB seems to be like okay in terms of making the sound but when we try to separate it from a V sound is where it gets difficult so that's why I wanted to introduce the B sound first so when you make the V sound then you should not use the same mouth position as a B sound when you make the V sound maybe go to the second camera again for this one when you make the V sound it should your teeth will go to the second camera I think is it okay right there okay cool thank you so when you make this sound your teeth should be resting on top of your lower lip so it's a butt so when we make the B sound both like your top lip and your your bottom lip are together curled together but but when you make a V sound your teeth are on top of your lower lip so example words you can use to practice this or like vegetable or vegan or Valley or Velociraptor or very so making that V sound you don't need to make the same mouth shape as a bees down so when I hear students say like video instead of video that's like that's a really great example of a mistake so we'll go back to the first camera thank you okay so be sound and V sound quite different so practice that position making the sound so try to do that one webcam is ugly okay got it Thanks control desk okay alright so but and the that's the second point alright then I want to focus lastly on this first group on a mistake of omission omission means you forget to do something or you do not do something this is a mistake of omission in pronunciation yes it's a pronunciation issue something we forget to pronounce but it's related to grammar knowledge as well so these two examples are the sound and the death sound so by this I mean the left sound in a pattern like I've like I've been to France I've never eaten ramen I've really had fun today this sound so people forget to make the sound I've I've we forget sometimes or learners forget sometimes and say I never and that's not correct so it's a grammatical problem and it's a pronunciation related problem the two are closely connected here so I've I've I've so that same the position we talked about here look we can use here it's just quicker and shorter I've I've the same problem I here with this D sound so this apostrophe this relates to I for example I'd like a drink I'd like some help for example I I'd so this is I would the contracted their reduced form I would like something right so please don't forget this one this is a mistake relating to grammar but that will affect your speech as well so I would I oh right I think it's time for a break do we have stuff to show today as always we have free stuff for you guys I think thank you as always we've got lots and lots of free stuff in the link below the video ah YouTube check the link in the description on YouTube or the link above a video on Facebook if you're watching on Instagram please check the link from YouTube or from Facebook um so today we're talking about pronunciation but I've noticed that when you are traveling or you are working or in a situation with people who are not used to dealing with like second language learners it can be extra difficult to communicate if your pronunciation is not like spectacular so let's take a look a couple of situations where it can be a really good idea to have good extra good pronunciation we'll go back over here is when you are eating at a restaurant so when you're eating at a restaurant like I just said actually there are back here there are some situations where good pronunciation can be important when you're ordering for example where's a good one where is it ah so when you're ordering for example up here data so like I can or I can't eat or drink that tea sound is important here or when you're asking for something I would like for example that's another situation where your pronunciation is important or maybe this one this key word here it's raw that could be an issue anyway this is a situation where having good pronunciation could be quite important when you're at a restaurant so you can get this this is a free PDF with vocabulary words and expressions you can use at restaurants this is for free as are all of these other ones I'll show some other ones a bit later too so these are all for free on the website there they are all of them of control desk is showing them to you now so check these out please you can download these for free you need an account on the website but the account is free so please check those out you can grab all of them at one time not just one everything you know ok so if you're just joining us today today's topic is English pronunciation tips so I covered the th and the S sound B and V sounds and this end sound already so now I want to move on to the next group and as you're just joining don't forget to like the video it's very helpful ok let's go on to the second group or the second part of today's lesson which is one of the biggest pronunciation mistakes I hear L verses are the L sound versus the R sound so I know in many languages there are no like equivalents we don't have the exact same sound for the English and the English are sound so today I want to introduce some words that can help you practice and help you kind of like understand how to make this sounds better so let's begin with an L sound so first a couple example words I've paired these together first with L there's lái lái and lip so these all begin with that L sound lai lai and lip so these are commonly confused for example with our sounds like Wray Wray and rip these are all real words so pronunciation can really affect your understanding of a conversation or the listeners understanding of a conversation okay so when you're making the L sound if you want to kind of find the mouth position you need to use for that L sound it's a it's kind of a tall feeling in the back of your mouth and when you make the lip sound your tongue briefly touches the top of your mouth look like the back of your teeth the top row of your teeth the back of them your tongue briefly touches that look so and then it quickly moves away so I touch the top of my teeth and then move it away quickly look to make that L sound so to practice this yeah lai lai lip love fly lice so there are lots of starting L sounds that you can use to practice this but as I said a lot of the time this sound is quite difficult and as a result students make this error sound so R this is one of the kind of the more difficult sounds to make I think so when we make the R sound the tongue is not touching any part of the mouth so the tongue is just like is pointing up the tip of the tongue is pointing up in the mouth and then the back of the throat kind of tightens as we release our voice so ar-ar-ar so my tongue doesn't touch anything it's just like hanging out in space in my mouth are are so don't let your tongue touch anything in your mouth when you make the r' sound fernando says what do ray and dry mean ray is like a ray of sunshine a beam of sunlight and rai is a type of flower or a type of bread for reference so a little extra vocabulary um excuse me so our our does not touch anything in your mouth the our sound el does when you make the L sound your tongue touches the top of your mouth the roof of your mouth L yeah so many people have trouble with L sounds and our sound someone said can you do a quick review for pronunciation if you missed the beginning part of this lesson you can watch it back this video is being recorded so if you missed these parts don't worry you can watch the video later on YouTube or Facebook okay so time's going quickly so I'm going to go to the next one the next point I want to talk about is er endings so I talked about this R sound this basic R sound but when we put it at the end of a word I noticed sometimes students make an O sound instead of an ER sound so some examples are player and computer earth so it's again that Earth sound not player or computer which I sometimes hear again this is for American English computer player junior says corridor corridor that's how you pronounce corridor yes this is live why do you how do you pronounce butterfly that's how a butterfly I say butterfly so er sounds other common ones are like a father or bigger so this is a great point right here this word bigger in your comparative forms bigger warmer smaller these ends with E are sounds so don't make it an O sound but an ER sound bigger smaller faster cuz okay some of you are sending just vowel sounds into the chat I can't answer that because it depends on the word so a you in one word might not sound the same as a you in another word I'll talk a little bit about vowels at the end of today's lesson but please keep in mind that one vowel sound does not make like one vowel does not equal exactly the same sound everywhere okay let's move along then I guess we'll take one more break and then yeah okie dokie we'll take one more break and then we'll continue to the last group of points vowels I'll talk a little bit about that though that's a really tricky topic to do in this kind of lesson so Donna let's look at some other free things what sounds interesting to talk about now not that guy we'll talk about something else for oh this is a good one oh my god this is such a good one for this topic singing in English oh man like I don't know if people like cuddle or karaoke as we say in English but when you if you like music and you like singing I'll go this camera if you like music and you like singing and your pronunciation is not very good when you're trying to sing along to your favorite song it can sound really really strange so these are some words related to singing these are not specifically like ways to improve your singing we unfortunately can't help with that but if you're interested in music and you like music and you like singing along to English songs these are some vocabulary words and some phrases that may help you to do that so like right here we've talked about it on this channel before but how to talk about your favorite singer for example or your favorite song so I like this song that's a great example of when to use that s sound instead of the th sound so check this out this is another free thing on the website you can download right now okay right now I'm sorry okay let's finish today's lesson then with as I mentioned some vowel related issues some vowel problems so it's a bit tricky to to talk about all vowel sounds in a lesson like this but I want to share a couple vowel sounds you can practice yourself these are again these are from mistakes that I've heard students make students make these mistakes in my lesson and I have trouble understanding and we have to practice together so let's look at this first pair this first pair is crash and crush crash and crush so crash is like a car crash two things or more coming together like in an accident crash to crash then crush is the other one to crush something means like to violently destroy something like to crush a can for example to crush so the difference here is this vowel sound crash and crush so the a sound has a really tall feel to it crash is wide later sorry it's quite tall that was the word quite tall crash but crush uses a really low you sound so it's like your jaw this part is called your job right here we drop that a bit crush to crush something this gets even more complicated with a word like class two like crash class clash so making this our sound is also quite important so like clash is also a word to clash means to have a verbal argument of words argument not actual fighting necessarily to clash so this is a great example of a pronunciation pair for vowels and for this L&R sound let's look at one more pair that focuses on a different vowel problem this is work focusing here work and walk work and walk so this is another one my students really struggled with work so this is it oh yes this is an O but the pronunciation here is the same as the word word work if I were you it's the same sound were here walk this has that same tall L sound walk walk let's walk in the park I need to take a walk so walk and work quite different so a great way to practice this is with the sentence I walk to work I walk to work so really practice making those sounds clearly and distinct from one another walk and work Oh someone else has a nice pair cup cap and cop I'll add that here bonus one cup cap ah so vowel practice cup cap cop so that low you sound I talked about here with crush cup the tall a sound cap and then cop so this is kind of kind of a wide Oh sound cop cop so these are great ways great kind of pairs or groups that you can use to practice pronunciation okay let's move along then because times go in quickly let's go on then we've talked about this point a few times in live streams and in lessons this is Eadie endings I want to review these easy vowel sound and the Spelling's end in edy but there are three different sounds we make so to review they are this eid sound a sound and a sound so let's take a look at some words that use these so let's start with this in sound an example wanted or pleaded so these words they end in an e d sound yes but they have like this Eid Eid thing so it's not an IDI one Ted pleaded but one did plea did it's an ID ending this one so that's the first type the second type as I said is this T sound so examples of these are walked and talked so again the ending is an IDI sound but we make a sound I walked to the park I talked to her yesterday so again IDI ending a second type a third type then here is this D sound so a great example is like breathe breathe or side side breathe or side so it's a soft D sound so we have this in and a dip sound so one spelling yes but three different types of pronunciation okay good umm then finally to finish today because we're out of time ah there are lots of other things we could talk about up and thank you for all of these like questions about pronunciation these are some just very common mistakes I've noticed if you really want to practice some difficult pairs one of my favorites to practice is elegant versus arrogant this is a great one to practice because it pairs vowel pronunciation with this L and our pronunciation elegant so here we need to focus on this L sound here we have an R sound arrogant arrogant elegant and arrogant this is a great pair I'm like to really challenge yourself with your clear pronunciation and another good one is the word brewery brewery this is a really tough word brewery this is a place where like beer is made like the factory where beer is made a brewery this is a great word for this our pronunciation along with some kind of tough foul pronunciation in the middle okay someone says they can't see the live stream on YouTube would no I don't see any friends with the YouTube yet alright but that's a quick introduction to some common some common pronunciation related problems I know that that's not everything and thank you for your questions maybe we can do another pronunciation stream in the future but as I talked about with especially with this th sound and with this V sound try to actually practice that mouth position so again to review the th sound to practice that first type your tongue goes between your teeth but the think teeth bath sound and with V we should put the teeth on top of our lower lip okay so I have to finish up there but thank you as always to everybody for joining us on Facebook and YouTube and on Instagram fantastic if you missed this live stream don't worry the video has been recorded you can watch it on YouTube and on Facebook and you can get the behind-the-scenes view on Instagram if you like we're going to be back next week we're gonna be back next week August 29th that is Wednesday 10:00 p.m. stern standard time we're going to practice leveling up your adjectives so for this I want to the goal for this lesson next week's lesson is to give some like better more specific adjectives I'm going to talk about us like a specific tool you can use to called adjectives wheels so we'll talk about how to go from saying like good or bad or sad or happy to something more specific so how to level up your adjectives a bit I'm going to focus specifically on like emotions and maybe like tastes and smells I think we'll see okay so we'll finish there for today thank you as always for joining us thank you for liking and sharing the video we really appreciate it and thank you very much for all of your comments in the chat too so please make sure to check out the free stuff that's on the website of the link below or above the video on Facebook or on YouTube and we'll finish there for today so thank you as always for watching enjoy the rest of your day or your week or your night or whatever and we will see you again next time bye bye you

Channel: Learn English with EnglishClass101.com

Views: 36,793

Keywords: englishclass101.com, englishclass101, learn english, easy, fast, longplay, compilation, fun, simple, learn while you sleep, english exposure, english immersion, get better at english, live, livestream, tv, english tv, american english, british english

Id: 8JUVhRR2hPw

Length: 33min 34sec (2014 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 23 2018