Pronunciation Tips

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来自 University of California, Irvine 的课程

Tricky American English Pronunciation

419 个评分

University of California, Irvine

Tricky American English Pronunciation

419 个评分

In this course, you’ll practice the sounds of American English that might sometimes be confusing. You'll practice both consonant and vowel sounds. You’ll also learn about the things that give English its special “music,” such as how to stress the right syllable in a word, how to make your voice go up and down in a natural-sounding melody, and how to naturally connect sounds and words. Learning these things will help you speak more clearly and make sure that others can understand what you're saying. This course is useful for English language learners who want to improve pronunciation of American English for better communication. Note that access to all of the lectures and handouts are free to anyone, but the graded assignments and quizzes are only available in the paid version of the course. You will need to submit recordings of your own pronunciation for graded assignments.

从本节课中

Tricky Consonant Sounds

In this first week, you will practice the consonant sounds of American English. Consonants are the sounds where the air coming up from your lungs meets some obstacles on the way. The first sounds in the words time, sand, and moon are consonants. After a quick quiz to find out which consonant sounds are the most difficult for you, you’ll practice some pairs of sounds that might be confusing and learn some tricks for telling them apart, and you’ll start to understand how your mouth moves when you say these sounds.

Shadowing a Conversation4:26

Pronunciation Tips5:17

与讲师见面

Tamy Chapman
Instructor, International Programs
University of California Irvine Division of Continuing Education
Marla Yoshida
Academic Coordinator
International Programs
Brad Gilpin

Let's learn some helpful tips for learning American English pronunciation.

[MUSIC]

We've asked some English teachers to give you advice on learning

American English pronunciation.

Let's meet today's teachers.

>> Hi, everybody, my name is Safineh Tamassebi.

And I'm an ESL instructor at UC Irvine Continuing Education.

>> My name is Mara.

I teach English as a second language at UC Irvine Division of Continuing Education.

My native language is Farsi.

>> Hi, my name is Jolanta, and

I teach English as a second language here in Irvine.

And I am also a non-native speaker.

My first language is Polish.

>> Hi, my name is Vera and I've been teaching at UCI for 18 years now.

I'm originally from Brazil.

>> Today's question is, which consonant sounds were most difficult

to produce when you were first learning American English?

>> The T-H sound.

>> Different pronunciations of the T-H sound.

>> As you can probably guess,

today we'll focus on the voiced and voiceless T-H sounds.

[MUSIC]

>> The T-H sound seems to be a big challenge for

many non-native speakers.

Because both the voice and the voiceless sounds are challenging for

us because they do not exist in most of the languages in the world.

>> Two sounds that were very difficult for

me to learn in English were the different pronunciations of the T-H sound.

As in, that or this or

thick or thin.

Those were really difficult for

me to learn because my native language does not have those sounds.

[MUSIC]

>> So, in Portuguese we pronounce T-H like F, so

a word like think, I would say fink.

And I remember that that was a struggle for me to train myself to not say fink.

>> I was not able to pronounce the sound thuh, and

it always came out as fuh.

F or duh and it was not really correct.

[MUSIC]

>> When I was learning English back in Iran, my native country,

I remember my English teachers would tell us to stick

our tongue out and, and make the T-H sounds like th.

But then when I came to this country I realized that nobody actually stuck their

tongue out and

I couldn't see anybody's tongue when they were making the T-H sound.

So I asked,

I said what are you doing with your tongue when you want to make the T-H sound?

And so they told me that you have to bring your upper teeth and lower teeth together.

But right before they meet just simply touch your tongue and

don't allow your teeth to touch.

Touch your tongue right in the middle.

Bring it right in the middle of the upper teeth and lower teeth.

Like this, [SOUND].

So, as you can see, you don't see my tongue but you do hear the T-H sound.

This is very important.

So don't stick your tongue out to native speakers.

They're not going to like it.

[MUSIC]

>> What helped me was actually looking at diagrams and

trying to look at people's mouths.

And that's how I teach pronunciation.

>> So I found again in the dictionary or

I asked my teacher for words that have those sounds.

And I made a list and I just practiced them, practiced them over and

over and over in front of the mirror.

I would record myself, as well, listen to myself to make sure

that the sound was pronounced carefully.

And that I could be understood by other people.

>> So, to sum up, look at diagrams to

see how [SOUND] and [SOUND] are formed.

Make a list of words with these sounds.

Use a mirror and

record your voice to make sure that you're saying the sounds correctly.

And remember, keep practicing the T-H sounds.

Don't give up, you can do it.

[MUSIC]

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