Improving english pronunciation

Jacqueline Rodriguez Nataly Lopez

Juan Gabriel Erazo Juan Camilo Gómez M.

Introduction Sometimes people who are learning English as a second language feel embarrassed when they have to speak in public or in front of a audience.

What we want to do is give them the material, we could say the tools to work on it. So basically our project is focus on pronunciation, also we focus on the hardest English sounds for Spanish speakers

Most difficult sounds These are the most difficult vowels for Spanish speakers.  You can find this sound /ʊ/ in words like: Cook, book, look, poor, took, mushroom, football…Etc And you could pronounce it like (U) sound in Spanish. You can find this sound /ɪː/ in words like: Keep, free, need, feed, been, seek, teeth, feel ...Etc And you could pronounce it like (I) long sound in Spanish.

 

Also there is an /ɪ/ short sound and you might be able to see the difference between /ɪ:/ and this /I/. Here are some examples:

1- Eat with /ɪ:/ and It with /ɪ/ 2- Heat and hit 3- Beat and bit

You can find this sound /ʌ/ in words like: But, cup, under, cut, run, blood, uncle, sun, club, summer…Etc And you could pronounce it like (A) sound in Spanish. You can find this sound / j / in words like: You, yes, yellow, useful, universe, unit, youth, year…Etc You could pronounce it also like (?) sound in Spanish. Is a voiced

sound, also is a lingua-palatal sound and when you make this sound you must feel a vibration on your throat.

“tion” sound at the end of the words

“ture” sound and the end of the words

At the end of the words is pronounce it as “shun” pronouncing U like this sound /j/.

ExplanationPollution EmotionLocation It’s phonetic transcription

is : /ʃən/.

At the end of the words is pronounce it as “shur”.

Adventure FutureLiterature Mixture It’s phonetic transcription

is: /ʃər/.

HomophonesHomophone: “A Word which is pronounced

the same as another word but has a different meaning or a different spelling”.

Examples:Piece - peace = /pɪ:s/, /pɪ:s/Be - bee = /bi/, /bi/Fare - fair = /fɛr/, /fɛr/ Son - sun = /sən/, /sən/Loan - lone = /lon/, /lon/

The S at the beginning

When Spanish speakers have to pronounce words like sport, school, station. They put and (-E-Spanish sound) before the S and that makes their pronunciation even worse. It’s phonetic transcription is : /s/ you just have to be careful and try not to add more sounds.

Final EDregular verbs in past tense

1. Use /t/ after unvoiced final sounds f, k, p, s, tʃ (ch), ʃ (sh), † (th). In words like: look - looked (t) push - pushed (t) ask - asked (t) watch - watched (t) help - helped(t) dress - dressed (t) 2. Use /d/ after voiced final sounds b, g, ʒ(j), l, m, n, r, ð(th), v, z, + vowels . In words like: sob - sobbed (d) roam - roamed (d) believe - believed (d) judge - judged (d) fill - filled (d) enjoy - enjoyed (d)

3. Finally you could Use / \d/ after final /d/ and /t/ . In words like:

Need - needed (\d) Wait – waited (\d) Accept – accepted (\d)

Suggestions 1- Listen to how speakers

pronounce various words and phrases and try to imitate them.

2- Try to listen to some music, specially with different accents (British. Canadian, Australian…)

3- Try to learn the phonetic alphabet, it gives you a reference of how you should pronounce.

4- Talk as many times as you can with your friends, you will learn new vocabulary and how to pronounce new words.

Thank you very much.