Pronunciation can affect how we communicate. Many people,
who have had a go at learning a foreign language, have experienced that sinking
feeling when they try a well-constructed sentence in another language only to
be met with a blank face.
Why is this?
Languages are built on sounds. If I speak English and live
in an English-speaking country, I expect a speaker to say sounds in a
particular way. In French or Spanish, I would expect to hear different sounds.
When we can’t recognise the sound, we try and adjust how we are listening, a
bit like tuning a radio, but if we can’t guess the sound, the chances are we
won’t understand what is being said.
The Blocks of Pronunciation
Pronunciation has two main aspects to it, physically
producing it and the sound that is produced from it, the hearing of the sound.
As we get older the ability to do both of these, i.e. physically work out how
to make the sound and recognise it, can diminish. This doesn’t mean we can’t
continue to learn new languages but we need some extra tricks to help us.
Let’s look at some ideas on what we can do when we learn a
new language.
How am I saying it?
Try saying the letters. Notice how your mouth is working. If
you don’t know how a sound is physically made you may find it harder to say it.
What sounds are the same?
English has many more sounds than other languages but it
also has a lot of sounds in common with other languages. Good dictionaries in a
new language will usually offer an English sound or word to compare with. Use
it to check what sounds are similar.
Which sounds are hard to say?
Go through the alphabet of the new language and mark out the
ones you find hard to say. Give them some attention. Try and physically make
the sound and see how your mouth works. Say the alphabet. Look at how children
use the alphabet song in English to help them remember the alphabet, doing the
same in a new language will also help memorise the letters and sounds.
Read out loud.
Find some reading form your coursebook or any other book.
There are two advantages here. One you get to say the letters and words.
Secondly, you get to practise sounds that you expect to hear and you become
accustomed to the sounds of the language.
How good do I need to be?
There is much discussion on this. For many of us the ability
to get by in other languages is good enough.
If we can say what we want, simply, slowly and the person we are
speaking to, can understand us, then our pronunciation is probably good
enough. After that, it is a matter of
choice. Some people become very good at other languages and get to very good
levels of pronunciation. Not many of us are such gifted linguists but there’s
no reason why we can’t make the words so that people can understand us.
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