Question

How to pronunce English words correctly? I have problems in some words.. Pls suggest some basic rules of pronunciation... Thanx

Answer 1

Let's start from saying that there is NOT a "correct" pronunciation of English and a "wrong" one. You can't tell a Scot he's wrong because he pronounces "caRR" instead of "cah" for car. There are ACCENTS of English. Some of them are considered to be more prestigious and thus are used in English Language Teaching (The British English "Received Pronunciation" AKA "The Queen's English" and General American). Most manuals and textbooks give samples in either one of these two pronunciations. Which one are you focusing onto?

Answer 2

You should first learn all the English vowels and consonants - you can do this with an English pronunciation app Saundz: http://saundz.com/free/

Here you learn one sound at the time and then you combine them into words. Saundz dictionary contains more than 440 different words that you can practice to pronounce by recording your voice and comparing it to a native speaker :)

Answer 3

Of course, you should first decide whether you'd like to learn British or American English pronunciation because the two variants can differ significantly :)

Answer 4

Tosif, it could be helpful if you could explain your problem in more details. Do you have problems with sounds, words or linking words in sentences? At what point have you noticed that you had a problem? We are all different and we prefer various learning methods. For some of us, learning pronunciation with videos and/or movies is just enough. Some of us need written instructions alongside clips.

Answer 5

Thanx @master and leenaka @jenifer , I have problem in some of english word ,how to pronounce it perfectly ..for example Cat =ket Centre =sentre Know =no But =baat Put =not paat but put Etc So could u tell me what is the simplest way to learn how to pronounce the word correctly ? Thanx

Answer 6

Saundz actually has all these words in its curriculum. You don't have to start from the first lesson, you can go to the lesson 4.4 to learn the word 'cat' or 29.2 to learn the difference between 'know' and 'no'. Browse all the other lessons by yourself :) and tell us what you think!

Answer 7

Practice makes perfect! I suggest the ''old school'' method - watch movies without subtitles, listen to music and try to write down the words. Find a native speaker and practice... Once you get the hang of the flow and sounds of the language, you'll pretty much know how to pronounce most of the words.

Answer 8

And make sure you always check the correct pronunciation of a new word as soon as you encounter it, so you would avoid learning it the wrong way. Then it would be much more difficult to correct it :)

Answer 9

You can also record yourself reading a chapter from a book or a magazine. Or, write down a part from a movie you like, and then read it and record yourself. Then listen to it and compare to the movie. I think that would also help.

Answer 10

I still believe that most people when trying to perfect their pronunciation just want to get rid of the echo of their mother tongue accent while speaking English. There are plenty of studies that confirm that students generally believe native-like pronunciation is important, here's one, I think it can be downloaded for free but I couldn't find the link. Anyways, I found it very interesting :) http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/rela.2012.10.issue-1/v10015-011-0048-3/v10015-011-0048-3.xml