How To Improve Your Pronunciation And Intonation in English

student i'm teacher prix and i'm going to help you talk to anyone anywhere anytime in english first of all thank you so much for joining me if you are watching live let me know here in the chat if you are watching the replay thank you so much i hope this lesson is helpful to you i hope you learned something new i hope you learned some interesting strategies that will help you improve your pronunciation and intonation in english and hey instagram thank you so much for joining i hope you enjoyed this lesson tonight i'm going to be talking about pronunciation and intonation in english because yes this is something we need to work on okay so anyway my friends tonight we talk about pronunciation and intonation so if you are on instagram i have these lights here on youtube okay and if you haven't subscribed yet make sure to subscribe to my channel because i know that more than 50 of people who watch like share are not subscribed yet anyway my friends pronunciation and intonation in english just as listening skills are important reading skills are important speaking skills grammar vocabulary well pronunciation and intonation are important and we need to dedicate some time to pronunciation and intonation okay now in tonight's lesson i'm going to be giving you some strategies i'm going to be telling you a few things that you should be doing if you want to improve your pronunciation okay if you want to improve your intonation and speak english more clearly okay now one important thing that i need to tell you right off the bat right off the bat is an expression okay right at the beginning right off the bat we're never gonna be native speakers i'm doing therapy i haven't gotten over that but that's the truth we're never gonna be like native speakers we are always gonna be uh working on something if i stop working on my pronunciation and intonation i will forget so this should be a continuous work you should be constantly working on your pronunciation in intonation because we're not native speakers okay if i compare myself to 10 years ago 15 years ago when i started studying ah i'm much better but if i stop and never do anything again i will go back to what i was because we forget it's not our native language even in my own language i confuse things let alone in english okay now practice a little but with consistency i guess that the biggest problem students have is with consistency you know this is something that i have been able to identify by uh teaching my students from all over the world i have been teaching english for more than 15 years and one thing i noticed was this the lack of consistency and the problems are very very common they start working on pronunciation and they do a lot they study a lot but for a very short period of time maybe a month maybe two months but after a few weeks a few months they stop they quit they don't try it anymore because for many reasons okay i'm not going to point out the reasons why people stop there are many reasons some may be connected to english some may be connected to their personal lives emotions things that are happening in their lives at the moment but for many different reasons it shouldn't do a lot over a short period of time but after a few months they quit they let it go they go on frozen mode elsa let it go let it go don't do that don't let it go so if you are trying to improve your pronunciation if you are trying to become a speaker who can communicate more clearly who can be understood by others do a little you don't need to do a lot but do it every day well not necessarily every day but consistently so if you are trying to improve your pronunciation and i think that this is something that many if not all many english learners should do is to study pronunciation and intonation so if you study three times a week let's say you can only study three times a week that's okay how often do you study english people on instagram tell me here in the chat do you study every day do you study on mondays wednesdays and saturdays saturday night of course not and people on youtube how often do you study english do you study english every day do you study english once a week i see some baby sardines here tell me my babies you should be studying a lot because i'm giving a lot of work a lot of challenges a lot of things for you guys to do so tell me what is your frequency what is your magic number is it once a week is it once a day maybe you have time but throughout the week and throughout the the the study routine you have established you need to include a little bit of pronunciation and you can do simple exercises i'm going to be giving you some suggestions here you don't need to complicate if you are consistent with your practice if you dedicate yourself to the language and study a little bit you are going to be able to get incredible results so i see some people saying four times a week every day all my free time during my free time twice a week uh okay okay some people say every day a little every day so a little goes a long way don't be fooled that you need to study a lot to get better results and this is going to be a subject for another lesson but when you are thinking of your study practice you need to find ways to combine different activities because we need to save time not everybody can study every day so whenever you do study you need to think smart and try to combine different activities so that you can be more productive so for example in my case when i'm studying english or when i am studying italian on the reading day i practice pronunciation and intonation so i'm not just practicing reading and reading comprehension i am also practicing pronunciation and intonation so find ways to combine different exercises so that you can save time and uh and and and you can be a um excuse me a consistent person so save time and be consistent that's the key so my first tip here do a little i'm i'm i'm all good with little as long as you do a little consistently every week for the past two months yes for the past two months i've been very busy i've been working a lot so i am studying italian studying three times a week sometimes twice i've been very busy but i'm still very consistent with my practice whenever i sit down to study which is twice or three times a week i really do the exercises i i have committed to okay and i am consistent with my pronunciation and intonation practice and when i sit down to study english and and practice vocabulary and practice pronunciation i am also very consistent i don't spend long hours studying but i am consistent with my practice because consistency is much more important than the quantity of things you study or the length of time you study okay moving on oh this is a very important tip when we are and this is for the exercise time okay so this tip is important but only when you are studying when you are practicing not when you are talking to people when you sit down to practice pronunciation and intonation exaggerate the sounds okay open your mouth imagine you were singing opera figaro figure a figaro exaggerate okay open your mouth because you are practicing don't be shy okay so if you pay attention to me now i am really emphasizing over stressing the sound so that you can understand me very clearly and easily of course i don't talk like that people don't talk like that this is practice time so when you're doing practice time open your mouth don't be afraid i sometimes this happens a lot when i'm teaching students to to make the the t8 sound or the and they are shy they aren't uh they are afraid they feel uncomfortable opening opening their mouth and and and making the movement they feel a little embarrassed don't feel embarrassed you are only going to learn to pronounce words correctly if you exaggerate the movement and the sound okay speak up don't be afraid it's practice time if you are shy you don't need to do this in front of people like i am doing right now you can do it alone in your room studying by yourself but when you do that and you are learning t8 sound or you're learning the ed sounds or you are practicing difficult consonant sounds like the b the v the d the g you know when you're practicing sounds it is important to exaggerate that's why i like to combine some kinds of exercises that i'm going to talk to you guys about so when you sit down to practice you really need to exaggerate another important thing when you're practicing pronunciation do not speak fast that's not the goal here actually you should you should forget the word fast when it comes to speaking not learning but speaking you don't need to speak fast to speak well you don't need to speak fast to be considered a fluent speaker that is bs okay you don't need to do that i love speaking at normal speed because i want to talk to anyone anywhere anytime i want to be able to be clear to as many people as possible i am a communicator that's who i am so especially when you're practicing do not speak too fast because if you speak too fast you will not be able to make certain movements okay lips tongue it'll be difficult especially because you haven't mastered the sound if you haven't mastered the sound it's probably because you haven't mastered the movements if you speak fast you won't be able to make the movements properly correctly that's why when you sit down to practice you have to speak slowly you have to repeat the word slowly in english the words are divided by syllables too okay that are syllables pronounce the syllables slowly okay so that is important otherwise you are never going to learn the sound you're studying correctly because you're always trying to do it too quickly as you learn and become more comfortable making that sound then you can speed up okay but not when you're learning certain sounds not when you're studying and here depending on on how often you study you can decide on different kinds of exercises that are different exercises that are exercises when you speak a little faster there are exercises when you speak a little slower okay more slowly why why is that important because we are working on different things so whenever you sit down to study to learn sounds to improve pronunciation of difficult sounds because english has some difficult sounds slowly okay and exaggerate movements move your mouth your tongue don't be shy because if you are shy and you just to speak like this you're not going to improve it i'm i'm sorry open your mouth okay it is important and you are going to thank me later maybe one day tell me guys here in the comments how often do you practice pronunciation and intonation how often do you sit down to focus on learning the pronunciation of words learning the the sounds checking the words and learning how to speak them correctly let me know here in the chat moving on now this is a very good exercise i really like it read aloud okay i don't have paper i don't have a book here with me but okay basically you can go on google and you can try to find an article a text something for you to read it would be better if you found um an audio a a an article that contains the audio because then you can listen we're gonna talk about that but here i'm talking about reading okay and here on my screen you can see a website recommendation the website is dictation dot io slash speech and this website is basically um a website where i click record and i read something or i say something and then the machine is going to type what i'm saying this is going to help you get a better idea of what mistakes you are making and then you can check the pronunciation of that word and i've tried i've used this many many times and it's very very very good okay really really good i use this to study actually and whenever i sit down and i practice reading i love using some me teacher pricks okay i love using some new york times uh articles they have really good language for my level remember that okay uh they're a little longer so think about that there are other websites that will be more appropriate to your level but i love checking the news and finding some interesting and complex texts so that i can read aloud and i use this website to see if my pronunciation and intonation are clear dictation dot i o slash speech okay now and the the good thing about this this website is that it's not perfect okay it's not 100 accurate but it does help a lot so i i i read the text and then i check the kinds of words that are that the machinists can't understand okay and this happens and then what i do is when i check the uh the word that the machine didn't understand i practice pronouncing that word alone if the machine still doesn't understand then i check the phonetics so that i can see what mistake i am making and then i go back and i practice again so see this is a very good website to work on pronunciation and intonation because if you use the wrong intonation as well it is going to spot the mistake you're making it's not going to tell you the mistake you're making it's a simple website you speak the machine types okay but i think it is a very efficient way for you to practice reading aloud because it is going to show you many mistakes you're probably making because i have found a lot of mistakes that i make and it's very useful because it shows me the kinds of mistakes that i'm making because of the words that it types incorrectly now as i told you it's artificial intelligence it's not perfect there will be moments when the machine will not understand especially if you speak too fast so when i'm reading i try not to read too fast otherwise the machine is not going to catch some phrases so i speak at normal to slow speed so that the machine can understand so this is a reading exercise where i can speak i read aloud i read the text aloud and as the machine types it's going to type some words incorrectly then after i finish i check the words it typed incorrectly i check the pronunciation of those words then i repeat those words individually and i check okay was it because i spoke too fast and then the machine didn't understand or was i making a pronunciation mistake maybe i was stressing the wrong syllable because this may happen so here it is a very interesting practice and you can try to do that when you are practicing your reading activities because i imagine that you practice reading because if you know me if you know my channel i always tell you guys to practice different kinds of activities okay so this is very important all right my friends keep that in mind so after the video is over i will send you the links i will post the links in the comments of the video on youtube i will try to post here on instagram as well instagram is a little bit trickier but i know that on youtube i can post the links to to the website i'm going to recommend okay because i think i have one more no two more recommendations of websites you can use there are free websites okay that are paid areas and versions but through the free versions you can already do a lot and work on your english and improve your pronunciation and intonation and here keep in mind that if you have a bad intonation the machine is not going to understand either and i guess that for people who speak too fast because they they they naturally speak fast this is going to be a good exercise because the machine is not so smart so if you speak too fast the machine is not gonna catch what you're saying so you have to be more slowly and speak more slowly uh read more slowly otherwise the machine is not gonna catch what you're saying okay and even when it does it may spot some mistakes now the mistakes as i explained maybe uh for two different reasons your pronunciation or intonation or because the machine didn't catch this happens okay so don't be sad if the machine doesn't understand things you say it's because of both reasons or your pronunciation and intonation are not on point or the machine didn't understand it happens okay moving on and hey send me love send me some hearts if you are enjoying this lesson you really support the channel by liking the video and by sharing the video you can share on instagram too send a direct i i don't know how you can do this but you can do this you know when you share the lesson with your friends you help the channel grow but you also help other people find this information more easily because then the machines on youtube the robots understand that teacher pricks is cool and then youtube helps teacher pricks moving on my friends vowel and consonant sounds important now you need on throughout the week when you study i don't know if it's every day you don't need to do this every day because it is actually a bit tiring okay you can do this maybe once a week or twice a week you can study the vowel and the consonant sounds individually you need to learn the different vowel sounds that are you need to learn the different consonant sounds the different combinations okay so this takes a little bit of time and uh if you if you go on google you this you can easily find this on google you can find this chart here on on youtube i'm showing a chart of phonetic symbols do you need to learn the phonetic symbols no absolutely not you don't need to learn okay i'm showing you this as a teacher because i am a teacher i study phonetics but when i say you study the consonant sounds and the vowel sounds i'm talking about a more practical way listening and repeating i'm not saying that you need to learn how to draw the sounds memorize the the symbols no no no you don't need to do that i need to do that nah cool but you need to study the sounds so learning the vowel sounds if you go on youtube and you type oh i want to learn the vowel sounds in english the consonant sounds in english the different consonant sounds in english this is a good exercise okay in in some of these videos and i have talked about this before here on youtube rachel's english she's a teacher she's amazing she has many pronunciation videos actually her channel focuses on pronunciation and intonation okay there are many kinds of youtube channels here i don't often recommend channels but her channel is perfection okay her channel is great if you are trying to work on pronunciation and intonation because she really focuses her time and energy creating pronunciation and intonation videos so this would be a good source a good free source here on youtube for you to study pronunciation and intonation more specifically pronunciation so learning the vowel sounds spending some time learning words with the specific vowel sounds you're studying this is helpful and again a little every week you don't need to spend one two hours doing that because it is tiring okay so spend a little time if possible every week consistently you are not going to notice results after one month doing this exercise it is about a consistent period of time and then you will be able to notice changes consistent changes it's about practicing consistently so learning the vowel and the consonant sounds can be very helpful okay moving on shadowing i love this exercise shadowing i love shadowing i do shadowing every week practice the art of imitation and here i have another website recommendation oh did i have a website recommendation oh yes uh for vowels and consonant sounds i will leave another link to a website recommendation okay and i don't know how to pronounce this website pronunciation i i don't know but it's p r o and u n c i a n dot com pronuncia n p r o n u n c i a n and uh on that website they have the sounds of the vowels and the consonant sounds everything is there and they show some words with those sounds so it is a very good website because it's it brings everything in one place okay so you can check i will leave the link after the video is over so that you can check this website as well to include on your uh study practice on your routine to study pronunciation and intonation okay now moving on going back to shadowing the art of imitation okay at first guys and i've talked a lot to a lot of students about shadowing and many of them tell me that it's so weird oh my god teacher it's so strange to do shadowing i feel uncomfortable and i agree with you it is a little bit uncomfortable so it will not feel natural at first at first you you feel stupid you will feel weird you will feel like that is not for you but practicing shadowing helps you hear and practice how the pitches change how the rhythm changes and this will help you work on your muscle memory i'm not with shadowing keep that in mind with shadowing i am not teaching you theory i'm not teaching you movements i'm not teaching you any of that i'm teaching you muscle memory because i'm watching someone speaking and i'm trying to imitate what they're doing and with the repetition by listening to the speaker and constantly trying to repeat what they say i'm practicing and i'm working on a different way of improving my pronunciation and intonation this is actually the best exercise in my opinion okay this is the best exercise for you to work on pronunciation and intonation especially because you're right there repeating after the speaker shadowing is um there are many ways for you to do shadowing but the best way would be to practice um repeating after the speaker without pausing so the speaker says something and you're there trying to follow along that's why you need the transcript okay this doesn't work with all kinds of videos or audios if you don't have a script the transcript it is difficult to follow along so on youtube if you try to find videos filter the videos to short videos what is a short video up to up to four minutes short more than four minutes it gets a little bit tiring to do shadowing okay it gets a little bit uh tiring and the audio is too long so it's difficult okay so up to four minutes and if you're finding if you're looking for videos on youtube videos that have subtitle okay if the video doesn't have subtitles it'll be difficult for you to read along to practice so i hit play here let's say you are using my videos okay you hit play you have to go as fast as i go you have to follow the speed okay you have to follow my speed if i rise my voice you have to rise your voice if i ask a question and i rise my intonation you have to rise if my intonation falls your intonation falls okay if i stress a word you have to stress that word you follow the intonation you follow what the speaker is saying the same way so you know when i'm watching friends i sum because i i have how am i gonna put this i'm more skilled this exercise is easier for me so whenever i'm watching friends i sometimes practice shadowing uh there is a little bit of delay because i don't use subtitles so i listen to what rachel is saying or ross or monika and i tried to follow the same intonation we were on a break and i tried to imitate what no way and i try some sentences why because i'm practicing i'm trying to sound the same way and there's no better exercise to help you improve intonation when they ask a question i try to imitate and follow the same the same pitch the same if they rise i follow the same thing so this is an incredible practice now doing that with tv series can be a little bit more difficult especially because the tv series uh the episodes are long when i do that uh by watching friends i do not do it during all the episode actually that is not what i do i choose some scenes that are in my opinion important that i like and then i try to repeat what they are saying so i do not follow uh i do not do this throughout the entire episode as it's too hard again as i said practice with short audio short videos and practice the intonation i like to use videos because then i get to see the person and i try to pay attention to their facial expressions so when they're angry or when they're happy or when they're excited or when they're surprised i like to to check their facial expression because that also helps me improve my intonation so this is by far one of the best and easiest exercises you can do to work on your intonation skills again as i said this does not help you learn the right movements okay because if you pay attention to americans especially americans i'm not focusing on other nationalities here i'm not talking about british people canadian people no americans okay let's focus on america they don't open their mouths so much because they have mastered the language let's make that very clear okay uh they because they do not open their mouth so much if you are trying to learn pronunciation and intonation by listening to native speakers just listening to them will not help you learn how to make the right movement because the movements are very subtle very subtle so that's why shadowing will not help you learn the movements it is more it's more intuitive okay so you learn here but you just listen and this is a very good exercise why do babies learn and improve their pronunciation so much well because through since they were tiny little babies so cute they were listening they didn't learn theory well they had to learn at some point but for pronunciation purposes okay i'm not talking about other aspects of the language because as i've always as i've already talked about we don't learn the same way babies do but there are some strategies that we can adopt on the way babies learn but again big disclaimer i like to make this very big disclaimer we do not learn the same way babies do because our brain is different the way we process information the way we interact with the world is different therefore we do not learn the same way however there are elements that i can adopt from the way babies learn that are strategies strategies that we notice in the way babies interact with the world that we can adopt that we can try to use so they don't as when they become adults why do they do not open their mouth so much they have learned the sounds over and over and over and over it's not like us we haven't spent the same amount of hours learning studying the same way but there are things we can definitely adopt so concluding here shadowing does not teach you um does not teach you the the theory how to open your mouth how to position the tongue no it doesn't teach you that it doesn't teach you the different vowel sounds it doesn't teach you the different consonant sounds it doesn't teach you how to stress words no it's all intuitive because you're listening in action live okay but it is a very good practice it is a practice that in my uh my online program the real english academy every lesson i tell my my baby sardines my students my babies to practice shadowing they have a listening exercise they have the transcript they have the audio so i tell them babies every time you're doing the listening you have to practice shadowing as soon as you finish the exercise practice shadowing practice aloud open your mouth exaggerate the movements because that's how you're going to learn okay oops okay moving on common mistakes now here there are six mistakes that are but i believe are super common the first one over stress word endings and what is this this happens a lot to latin uh people okay people from spain from brazil from chile from uruguay let's see where else there are some other countries too out outside south america and latin america so you over stress word ending so instead of saying like like people say likey i don't even like to say that that or that i don't like doing that so i'm not gonna focus on that okay but that's basically what i'm saying over stressing the last vowel or the last consonant sound okay so be careful with these exaggerations you don't emphasize the word endings if it's not necessary if there is a sound to be made you need to learn the correct sound the last co the last letter of the words are not always pronounced okay you need to that's when checking the phonetic symbols will help you because it shows you where the pronunciation ends okay so the last letter of a word may not always be pronounced and if there is a pronunciation for that last word make sure to check how to pronounce that last word last letter that's why using dictionaries when you're studying pronunciation is very helpful so if you are not sure on how to pronounce that last part of the word check an online dictionary today most if not all dictionaries online show you how to pronounce the words okay awesome now second mistake and i have videos talking about this actually i have videos talking about all of them pronouncing silent letters okay like listen some people say listen listen listen to me listen no no no no no no not muscle so there are some letters in english that are silent we don't pronounce them however some students tend to pronounce those letters it is a very common pronunciation mistake confusing vowel sounds guys this number three i make this mistake okay confusing the vowel sounds because as i said as much as i study i've been studying for more than 15 years even though i am really really good at what i do i still make mistakes and i will probably make mistakes until the day i die and i will die in english the day i get to heaven and god starts talking to me i'm gonna like i'm gonna be like hey in english no portuguese please but priscilla you were born in brazil like no english i'm not staying here if you don't speak please god i don't want to go to hell but i'm serious you know i even dream in english my dreams are in english i think in english so if i die and i meet god i want to be talking in english and i'm going to be like dude english come on okay i like italian but my favorite language is english um my my it's like here english i like italian very much but when i when i when i die i i want to die in english you know if that's even possible anyway confusing vowel sounds happens okay it happens to everybody so it needs constant work okay so i'm always practicing learning learning vowel sounds i'm always reviewing learning vowel sounds because i know that it is very confusing okay so always practice studying vowel sounds okay every week i'm always checking sounds because i know we make mistakes when it comes to vowel sounds if i compare english to portuguese that i think there's so many vowel sounds that don't exist in portuguese but exist in english so there are sounds that i never learned when i was a child so i need constant work okay uh consonant sounds this is also a problem for many english learners okay so constant it's the same thing with vowels in my personal opinion i believe the consonant vowels are easier than the vowel sounds okay uh the consonant sounds are easier in my opinion for me teacher prix you need to check it to for yourself so but uh but at the end of the day there's still mistakes people make with consonant sounds t v b m n l y some people make many mistakes with y the letter r the different sounds of r the h sound there are mistakes with these consonants okay people from italy they have a big problem with the h okay some uh for example h as in house okay sometimes they mispronounce these words that have this sound because it's not common for them okay so consonant sounds can be challenging it depends on where you are from for asian for asian people arabic people the b the v they're difficult sounds as well the j sound can be very difficult for them as well the g sound it can be difficult okay so study them number five the t8 sounds are difficult and here on my channel i have um i'm pretty sure i have videos talking about the t8 sound and giving you the strategy behind how to make the movement how to position your tongue okay and then make the sounds here if you uh if you study as as many of you have told me oh i study every week okay awesome so check these six mistakes google exercises that you can do t8 sound exercises consonant sounds vowel sounds study the vowel sounds and here number six stressing the wrong words in a sentence this is more connected to pronunciat excuse me this is more connected to intonation in english when we make a sentence we have to stress to emphasize specific words and sometimes the students don't know how to do that now with shadowing you are going to fix this mistake because in conversations if you practice shadowing consistently you will be working on correcting the stressing in a phrase in a sentence so this is practice if there is one kind of exercise that will pay off is being consistent with pronunciation and intonation practice because it's pretty much the only way for you to improve to speak more clearly in english in conversations because you may you you will never talk like a native speaker don't don't feel that way but you will and this is for sure you will speak clearly people will understand you you will feel more comfortable with your pronunciation with your accent with your accent with your intonation this can be done okay this is something that you can definitely do no matter what your level is pronunciation is something pronunciation pronunciation and intonation are two things that i work with my students from day one from basic level so this is something that you if you didn't do when you were a beginner you have a lot to catch up okay so do that practice because this is ongoing this is a continuous work okay other than that my friends do you have pronunciation questions so i will finish the video now i will come back here in the comments and post the links of the website recommendations on youtube and if you have pronunciation questions i can about specific words or specific sounds let me know in the comments not in the chat in the comments of this video and then i can create uh specific videos to talk about specific sounds of words or vowels or consonants in english okay other than that have a lovely day all right lovely night let me say goodbye to instagram thanks everybody come to youtube subscribe and check the recommendations of the websites that i've talked about in this lesson thank you bye and now you guys thank you so much for watching share this lesson with your friends subscribe and i'll see you next time bye

Channel: Teacher Prix

Views: 6,310

Keywords: english, english lesson, teacher prix, english class, fluency in english, fluency strategies, how to become a fluent speaker, strategies fluent speakers follow, english tips, english grammar, listening, pronunciation in english, pronunciation tips, pronunciation and intonation in english, pronunciatiton lesson, intonation in english

Id: xf8mbQ8KEs0

Length: 43min 50sec (2630 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2020