Pronunciation Tips

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Aus dem Kurs von University of California, Irvine

Tricky American English Pronunciation

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University of California, Irvine

Tricky American English Pronunciation

404 Bewertungen

In this course, you’ll practice the sounds of American English that might sometimes be confusing. You'll practice both consonant and vowel sounds. You’ll also learn about the things that give English its special “music,” such as how to stress the right syllable in a word, how to make your voice go up and down in a natural-sounding melody, and how to naturally connect sounds and words. Learning these things will help you speak more clearly and make sure that others can understand what you're saying. This course is useful for English language learners who want to improve pronunciation of American English for better communication. Note that access to all of the lectures and handouts are free to anyone, but the graded assignments and quizzes are only available in the paid version of the course. You will need to submit recordings of your own pronunciation for graded assignments.

Aus der Unterrichtseinheit

Tricky Vowel Sounds

This week, you’ll practice some tricky vowel sounds in American English. Vowels are sounds that come out of your mouth very smoothly, like the first sounds in apple, ocean, and out. Vowel sounds are very important for being understood in English. They’re the “heart” of each syllable, and they need to be said clearly to avoid misunderstanding. Our goal is to help you pronounce English in a way that can be easily understood by listeners in real life, and mastering vowel sounds is an important step toward that goal. Now let’s practice the vowel sounds of American English.

Shadowing a Conversation3:23

Pronunciation Tips5:35

Treffen Sie die Kursleiter

Tamy Chapman
Instructor, International Programs
University of California Irvine Division of Continuing Education
Marla Yoshida
Academic Coordinator
International Programs
Brad Gilpin

Let's learn some helpful tips for learning American English pronunciation.

[MUSIC]

We've asked some UCI International Programs teachers and

staff members to give you advice on learning American English pronunciation.

So let's meet our interviewees.

>> Hi my name's Vera Fujiura and I've been teaching at UCI for about 18 years.

My first language is Portuguese.

>> Hi, my name is Cindy Lin.

I work at UCI as a staff.

I came from Taiwan and my native language is Mandarin.

>> Hi everyone, my name Ivelina and I am from Bulgaria.

I came to the United States about ten years ago and

my native language is Bulgarian.

>> Hi, my name is Meg Parker.

I'm an instructor at UCI, and my native language is English.

I live in California, but I'm originally from the state of South Carolina.

>> Hi, my name is Rachel Fernandez.

I teach English as a second language at UCI, and I am from California.

>> Today's question is, what are some vowel sounds that are particularly

difficult for learners of American English.

>> /iy/ sound instead of /I/.

>> /)/ and /ow/.

>> The sound /ow/.

>> It is the /ae/ sound.

>> The /e/ sound.

>> In this video, the interviewees will talk about those vowel sounds that you've

just heard and that you can see now on the screen.

[MUSIC]

First I'm going to give you a few tips regarding vowel sounds.

I'm going to talk a little bit about my

experience when I first started learning English.

I was an exchange student in Michigan, and

one of my greatest teachers was my host sister.

And she would correct me a lot, and I remember the very first time,

one of the first times when I was talking to her she mentioned

the song 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson that was really famous in 1984 and

I remember I pronounced it with an /iy/ sound instead of /I/.

So I would say three-ler instead of thriller.

And she kept correcting me until I finally was able to get it and

to pronounce it correctly.

I also had trouble with other words with the /iy/ and

/I/ sound because in Portuguese we don't have the /I/ sound.

So I would say for example instead of saying live I would say leave.

And instead of saying for example sit, I would say seat.

So there were a lot of words that I had to work

on before I was able to master the sound.

>> There are some sounds I find very difficult to pronounce when I speak

English.

For example /I/ and

/iy/ like sit and seat.

And also /)/ and /ow/.

Like bought and boat.

[MUSIC]

>> The sound /^/ was my biggest problem.

For example, hummingbird.

I used to say hummingbird.

And people corrected me a couple of times and

that's how I learned how to say it right.

[MUSIC]

>> So one sound that's really difficult for my students is /e/,

students from all kinds of different language backgrounds.

And so my name Meg, M-E-G.

And it's a little hard because it's got /e/, Meg and

it's got a /g/ at the end, Meg.

And those are sounds that aren't so common in a lot of other languages.

So my students will call me things like, instead of Meg they'll call me make Or

Mack or, I don't know, there are many other things they call me.

So I know that it's a very difficult sound, the /e/ sound.

[MUSIC]

>> Okay, so one of the sounds that is kind of,

universally mistaken among students is the /ae/ sound.

So the difference between snake and snack, bake and back.

In fact, one time in a class where I had a mix of students,

I had these students from Taiwan talking about night market, and

they were saying You can buy lots of snakes there to eat.

And my Arabic speaking students were like, whoa they're eating snakes, that's so

strange.

And there was this miscommunication because they didn't want to say they

were buying snakes to eat, they wanted to say they were buying snacks to eat,

but the listener just assumed that it was a snake.

>> So to sum up, as you've just heard, vowel sounds can be very tricky.

But you can improve, don't worry.

Stay tuned, in the next helpful tips video,

you'll hear advice on actions you can take to improve your vowel pronunciation.

So see you then.

[MUSIC]

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