- Hi, I'm Gabby from gonaturalenglish.com where you can learn English fluency and confident communication. (upbeat music)
(vocalizing) At the end of this video I'm going to tell you
how you can learn more with me at gonaturalenglish.com but right now I want to
share a lesson with you on how you can learn how to pronounce words in English immediately the first time that you
see a new vocabulary word. The problem is that you probably read a lot in English. A lot of people learn
English by reading textbooks or maybe reading what your
teacher wrote on the board or maybe you had handouts. In any case, a lot of
people are more comfortable with reading in English than speaking because when you see a word in print, it's easy to read and you
can relate that word in print to the meaning but if
you're not used to listening to English it's not always clear how you pronounce the word because the way words are spelled and the way that they're
pronounced in English are often very different and misleading. Have you ever seen a word in English and you haven't been sure how to say it? Tell me in the comments. What do you think are
the most difficult words in English to pronounce? I would love to hear from you. So words are often
spelled very differently than they sound in English. That's a fact, a very well known fact that you are definitely familiar with. So the question is, how can we learn how to pronounce the words in an easy, effective way? I'm gonna share steps with you on how you can do this. It's important to understand
how to pronounce words because what a lot of people do is they just avoid using the words that they don't know how to say but this doesn't help you
build your vocabulary, it doesn't help you be
a better communicator and it doesn't help you
become more fluent in English. So I know what it's like. I've done the same thing because I'm learning Portuguese and sometimes when I don't know how to pronounce a word, even though I know the word, I know what it means, I still have avoided using it because I wasn't confident on how to pronounce it. I strongly recommend that
as you learn new words and how to pronounce them that you use this tool that I call C-R-U or CRU which is Connect, Repeat, and Use. This is a Go Natural English method to help you with pronunciation
and memorizing vocabulary and your fluency in English. So again, connect the word with a sound or a concept or an idea or another word that you already know to
make it easier to remember. Repeat it and use it. So how can you repeat it? Well, we need to take notes on how the word sounds and its definition and how we could use it. So it's important that you
have a vocabulary notebook. It could be a paper notebook. It could be on your smartphone. I like to take notes in Google Keep but I also am old school and I like to write in a
paper notebook as well. So make sure you have
whatever works best for you, digital or hard copy. Make sure you have a notebook. And finally, use! The most important step
here is that you need to use a word as soon as you learn the correct pronunciation. Make sure that you
repeat the word out loud. First, you listen to the word then you use it. You have to say the word out loud and the best way to say it
out loud is with feeling, like you mean it. So even if it's a simple word, let's take the word gumption, for example, which is a fun sounding word. I really like it. Say it with feeling. Not just gumption. I'm just repeating the
word because I'm studying. But gumption! Yes, with feeling! Gumption actually means with resilience or with effort so it makes sense to repeat it in this way. You've got gumption! Yes, excellent. So back to how to learn how to
pronounce a word in English. Really, the best resource that we have nowadays is technology. It's changed language learning
and everything around us and Google is a great resource. If you just Google a new vocabulary word most of the time the first result will be not only the definition but the audio of how to say the word. Just double check that you're hearing the American accent
version if you're looking in an audio dictionary because you may hear different audios if you're using, for example,
the Oxford Dictionary Online. It's totally fine with me if you're learning British English but just a reminder, I
teach American English and sometimes it can be confusing if you're learning different varieties of English at the same time so I encourage you to choose one variety and go with it. But this lesson is not specifically about American English or British English. It's about how to learn how to
pronounce a word in English. So your first step should
be to consult Google or an online dictionary with audio. You could also ask a fluent
or native speaker of English and they should be able to
help you with a lot of words, however keep in mind that if you're asking about a very specific, technical, or academically advanced word, not all native speakers
automatically know how to pronounce any word. So for those kind of specific, technical, academic words you might just want to go straight to an online dictionary. So remember, don't avoid saying new words. Find out how to pronounce
them and then use them. The first step in improving
your pronunciation is to understand that words in English sound very different than
the way that they're written. The second step is to consult an online dictionary with audio. The third step is to use your
English learning notebook to take notes on the word, the definition, how it sounds to you, and how you might use it in a sentence. Online dictionaries
will give you examples. The most important key
here for pronunciation is to write down how
the word sounds to you, the way that you hear it and the way that it would
make sense to spell it if you could create the
spelling of the word. This will help you to review
the pronunciation later. It's also very important to
mark the stressed syllable. In language classes,
I often get frustrated when a teacher just
tells me to just learn it or just memorize it. That's why I want to share strategies and techniques with you
to help you to memorize because it's not always
so easy or automatic to just remember something
the first time you hear it. So that's why I mention the
Go Natural English CRU method, Connect, Repeat, and Use. Another way that you can
connect words in your journal is to group new words by the
sounds that they have in them. So, for example, the word gumption. We could group this with other words that end in T-I-O-N
like function or nation. This could help us remember that the T-I-O-N sounds like shun. You could also do this with shorter words and group them by vowel sound so if you have trouble
pronouncing the word said which is a difficult word
for many English learners. They often make the mistake of pronouncing both vowels
separately like sayeed. You could group this word, said, with other similar vowel sounds like bed, fed, wed, and said. To improve your pronunciation, it's very important to expose
yourself to more English so this means listening to more English. You could listen to more podcasts, more YouTube videos, listen
to the news in English. I recommend that you listen to more Go Natural English videos and there's also a Go
Natural English podcast. You can slow down videos
on YouTube and in podcasts or speed them up if you're
ready for a challenge. When you listen to more English, it will definitely help you to become more familiar
with the sounds in English and you may hear words and subconsciously remember them later. So it's always a good idea to listen more and have
more input as we call it. You can also listen to audiobooks. This is a great way to
learn how words react when you put them together because when we learn the pronunciation of a single word, sometimes it changes when we use that word in a sentence. For example, let's look at
a sentence with short words. A short example, is he busy? When I say this quickly and naturally it sounds like izzy bizzy. Izzy bizzy is very
different than is he busy. So these are short words but sometimes words change when you put them in a sentence. Another example is diamond necklace. It would sound like the D at
the end of diamond is gone when you say these words quickly together. Diamon necklace. Diamon necklace. So as I mentioned, sometimes
words sound different when they're in a sentence. That's why it's a good
idea to not only learn the pronunciation of one word but how that word sounds and how you should say it in a group of words. So I hope that I'm not
making you feel overwhelmed by saying this. The first step is to learn how the individual word is pronounced and then you can worry later about making your phrases and your fluency more natural. If you're interested in learning a lot of languages or becoming an English teacher, it could be really useful for you to learn the
International Phonetic Alphabet. This is what you see in
all dictionary entries when you see visually how
the word is pronounced, not the audio entry but
the funny looking letters next to the word that you're searching. The International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA is a set of characters or an alphabet that shows us exactly how
the word is pronounced. Wouldn't it be nice if
English was like this? This is why it's so great to learn the IPA because it unlocks
pronunciation in English and any language for you. The downside is that it
can take a while to learn. The IPA is really, like,
almost like learning a whole 'nother language but it's very useful if you
have the time and interest. I learned the complete IPA
when I was studying linguistics during my Master's degree
in teaching English as a second language. Listening to more English
will definitely help you to recognize patterns in pronunciation like words that end in
T-I-O-N sound like shun, like gumption. Another way that you can
find out about patterns is by studying etymology and if you love linguistics and history, learning about the roots of words, well, that's etymology and it's super fun. So if you want to learn more about words and their prefixes, their suffixes, where they come from, this can also really help you when you're taking tests on vocabulary. Definitely it's a good idea to find out about where words come from in English because we borrow words from
so many different languages. Like, Greek for example. When we have words like democracy we see that demo means people in Greek. Or you might recognize a lot
of words from French in English because there's a huge French influence. So you'll understand
how to pronounce words like entrepreneur or
connoisseur or mountaineer. So then if you're familiar
with French etymology you'll immediately know
how to pronounce words like entrepreneur,
sommelier, and connoisseur. To summarize, Google is your friend. Find out how to correctly
pronounce new words that you're not sure about with Google's online
dictionary with audio. But that is not enough to
help you with your fluency. If you truly want English fluency and you want to
communicate with confidence and stop avoiding words then use all the techniques
and strategies from this video. If you'd like to learn more with the Go Natural English method, we have a complete course that helps you with pronunciation
and all English skills. Go to gonaturalenglish.com/course. The link is in the
description right down there. You can find out when we're opening another session of our course and you can pre-register
for more information. Thank you so much for watching. Make sure that you are subscribed by clicking right down there. If you'd like to download my audio e-book, The English Fluency Formula,
you can click right down there and you can watch another
Go Natural English lesson right here on YouTube by
clicking right over there. Thanks and I'll see you
in another lesson soon. Bye for now.
