PRONUNCIATION

PRONUNCIATION

Pronunciation is the act or manner of speaking a word. Pronunciation includes features of language (vocabulary) and skills (speaking).

 

Aspects of Pronunciation

To improve pronunciation, there are 3 main aspects of pronunciation-:

a)      Phonetics: Phonetics is a branch of science that studies speech sounds and their physiological production and acoustic qualities.

b)     Stress in pronunciation: Stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence.

i.       Word Stress: Word stress is the emphasis we place in a specific syllable of a word when pronouncing it.

ii.     Sentence Stress: Sentence stress in English is the way a speaker highlights certain words in each sentence. It helps the listener focus on important parts and understand the speaker's meaning.

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies speech sounds, their physiological production and acoustic qualities. it is useful to know its phonetic structure. Recognizing phonemes will allow you even Pronounce correctly words you have never heard.

a)      Phonemes- Phonetics also studies of the range of sounds which occur in speech these sounds have their own graphic representation that are called Phonemes. Phonemes are 44 in number and these are further classified into Vowel (20) and consonant (24).

b)     Syllable- A syllable is a unit of spoken language that forms an entire word or parts of words. Syllables are usually made up of a single vowel sound and any surrounding consonant sounds. For instance, the word 'butter' contains two syllables: 'but' and 'ter'.

Stress

Stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. In English, stressed syllables are louder than non-stressed syllables. Also, they are longer and have a higher pitch. English is a stress-timed language. Stress may be primary (strong), secondary (weak) and tertiary (lowest) stress.

Word Stress

Word stress is the emphasis in a specific syllable of a word when pronouncing it. A word has one or more individual sounds of a word (i.e. syllables). If there are two or more than two syllables in a word then they aren't pronounced with the same weight. One syllable receives more emphasis than the others.

For example-

There are three syllables in the word “beautiful” /beau/ti/ful/ and the word stress falls on the first one /BEAU/. We will give the highest emphasis when pronouncing ‘beau’.

Sentence Stress

Sentence stress in English is the way a speaker emphasizes more only on certain words and highlights them in each sentence. It helps the listener focus on important parts and understand the speaker's meaning. Normally this emphasis is on words that carry important information, although this pattern can be changed depending on the specific meaning the speaker wants to communicate.

For Example-

She _'bought a new 'car. (Primary stress is on 'car' and secondary stress on 'bought'.

Importance of learning Pronunciation

a)      Correct pronunciation helps you to create good impression on other.

b)     It builds confidence of a speaker.

c)      There are less chances to mispronouncing the words which have similar sounds.

d)     Correct pronunciation makes language learning easy.

e)      Without correct pronunciation, speaker’s vocabulary will become effective when communicating.

f)      Good pronunciation can help improve your social skills. 

Tips to improve pronunciation

a)      Get to know the phonemic chart. 

b)     Listen carefully while learning.

c)      Take help of recommended online dictionaries

d)     Notice how mouth and lips move.

e)      Pay attention to tongue.

f)      Break words down into sounds.

g)     Understand syllables.

h)     Add stress to sounds and words.

i)       Exaggerate certain sounds (make them bigger).

j)       Write out difficult words by their sounds.

k)     Practice with tongue twisters.

l)       Use pronunciation podcasts and videos.

m)    Record yourself.

n)     Practice many times.

o)     Speak as much as you can. 

p)     Don’t speak too fast.