PRONUNCIATION PROBLEMS

Terms to Remember• Phonology :- Branch of linguistics which deals with the study of speech sounds used in

a language . It comprises of :

i. Phoneme : It is the smallest contrastive unit of speech which may bring a change of meaning of a word.

ii. Prosody : It includes stress, rhythm and intonation.

• Phonemic symbols:- They are used to represent sounds and provide visual aid.

Need of Correct Pronunciation

Speaking a language is a performance skill. But knowledge of how language works is still of great value.

To distinguish between words

e.g. plane and plan

To speak English fluently

For “Comfortable Intelligibility”

What makes pronunciation difficult ?

Lack of confidenceLack of vocabularyThe teachers did not focus on the pronunciationInfluence by the surroundingInfluence of mother tongueInability to hear certain sounds

Things to remember• In English , alphabets are 26 but sounds are 44.

• Spellings are not reliable guide to pronunciation.

• Some letters have more than one sound.

• Some letters are silent.

• Same sound may be represented by different symbols.

• 19 out of 44 symbols have same sound as they are represented.

• Sometimes syllables are not pronounced at all.

parts into which a word is naturally divided when it is pronounced

Rules/e/ have the same sound when it is used in a word e.g. “pet” .

special attention to symbols like /j/ , which has the initial sound of “yellow” , not that of “judge” .

When ’ea’ comes in a word , it is pronounced differently e.g. /e/ in head and /i:/ in bead.

Pronounce /r/ only if a vowel sound follows directly as in “near” and “heir” otherwise it is omitted as in “bird”.

Sometimes ‘s’ is pronounced as /z/ e.g. calls

pronounced as “callz”.

some letters are silent e.g. “debt” pronounced as det.

Continue....

Many same spellings have different sounds e.g. <ough> is used as though , ought, cough, enough etc.

Many same sounds have different spellings e.g. though, foe, bow, slow.

Sometimes ‘c’ is pronounced as /k/ as in “cat” and /s/ as in “face”.

Special attention must be given to SCHWA.

The sound of SCHWA• Schwa is the name for the most common sound in English. It is a weak,

unstressed sound and it occurs in many words. It is often the sound in grammar words such as articles and prepositions(as the usual sound of the first and last vowels of the English word America).

Getting the schwa sound correct is a good way of making your pronunciation more accurate and natural. 

The phonemic symbol for this sound is (∂)• “man ” (mæn) and “postman” (postm∂n)

• “vitamin” , “event” ,”campus” , “brother” , “for” etc.

• “This present is for my brother. It's a book about a boy wizard.”

Phonemic symbols chart

Word stress

• There are two very simple rules about word stress:

• One word has only one stress. 

• We can only stress vowels, not consonants.

a. Stress on first syllable if nouns and adjectives:-HAPpy, EXport, CHIna, CLEVer.

b. Stress on last syllable if verbs to preSENT, to exPORT, to deCIDE, to beGIN.

Intonation

Should use the correct pronunciation during the conversation.

People would easily misunderstood because of the intonation that we use.

Good situation – low pitch and not use the high pitch.

Speak calmly.

Try to use all articulators.

How to overcome ?• Practise a lot.

• Keep a dictionary with you.

• Tuition centre.

• Online courses are available.

• Solve quizzes and play games.

• Watch videos and try to copy instructors.

• Read more and more quality newspapers.

• Use audio materials.

• Read phonology books.

Don’t loose your accent

at all