Pronunciation
A number of different features of your pronunciation have the potential to make you difficult to understand when speaking English. The following sections give you advice on how to improve your pronunciation of Word stress, Vowel sounds, Consonant sounds and Sentence stress and intonation.
Word stress
The way you pronounce the stress patterns of words is a very important feature of English pronunciation. Research has shown that listeners have a lot of difficulty recognising words if the stress pattern is wrong or unclear. In fact, they might think you’re saying something completely different! In order to pronounce the stress pattern of a word clearly you need to have:
- the right number of syllables
- the right pattern of strong and weak syllables
For information on counting syllables and rules for stress patterns in words
www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/word-stress.htm
http://www.e-pron.com/
Vowel sounds
Vowels are very important to listeners, and if you pronounce them inaccurately, you might end up saying a word you didn’t mean to say. It can be difficult to pronounce some of the twenty Australian vowels because they are quire different from British and North American examples. However, watching the Australian soapie Neighbours, for example, or listening to Radio for the Print Handicapped can help you become familiar with Australian pronunciation styles and vowel sounds.
The two types of vowel sounds are monophthongs (e.g. a single sound like in herd) and diphthongs (e.g. two sounds like in hide). The pronunciation of these Australian vowel sounds is affected by things like how open your mouth is and whether the sounds are made from the back or front and top or bottom of your mouth.
Links:
top of pageConsonant sounds
The inaccurate pronunciation of consonants can be very confusing for your listeners. When considering your pronunciation of consonants you need to be careful about how you pronounce consonants and consonant clusters (groups of consonants) at the beginning, in the middle, and at the ends of words.
There are a number of English consonants that you might be difficult for you to pronounce.
Links:
For an indication of what consonants people from your language background might find difficult
www.speechcom.com/training/directory.htm
For an overview of how to pronounce the English consonants
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/pron/
www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/english/frameset.html
For an overview of English consonant clusters
www.btinternet.com/~ted.power/clustersindex.html
Chunking, sentence stress, and intonation
Listeners rely on the position of pauses, the words you emphasise, and patterns of intonation to understand the meaning of what you say.
- The position of pauses is very important to listeners, who rely on the way words are grouped together (“chunked”) to understand meaning.
Link: To practise listening for how words are grouped together
- The words you emphasise are also important to listeners, and if the wrong words are emphasised, listeners can be quite confused about what you mean.
Links: To practise listening for the most prominent word in a sentence
www.btinternet.com/~eptotd/vm/plato/platmen.htm
www.eptotd.btinternet.co.uk/pow/powtut2-1.htmTo practise using sentence stress to contradict or correct
http://lc.ust.hk/~material/pl/u16.htm
To practise using sentence stress (and intonation) to emphasise particular information
- The same words can mean many different things – it depends on the intonation pattern you used when you were saying them. Your intonation is also important when you’re having a conversation, because it signals to the listener whether you have finished what you’re saying or whether you want to continue.
Link: To practise changing your intonation to express different feelings
Other resources
Pronunciation kits available in the University of Melbourne libraries include:
These kits include CDs or cassette tapes.
- Hancock, M. (2003). English pronunciation in use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UniM ERC KIT 428.1 HANC
- Hancock, M. (2006). English pronunciation in use. Intermediate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UniM ERC KIT 428.34 HANC
- Hewings, M. (2007). English pronunciation in use. Advanced. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UniM ERC KIT 428.34 HEWI
- Zawadzki, H. (1994). In tempo. An English pronunciation course. Sydney: NCELTR. UniM ERC KIT 428.34 ZAWA
An award winning online program to develop listening and pronunciation skills can be trialled at:www.speechinaction.com/ (You can try it for free if you click on the link under “Try for free” and register)