For me one of the biggest challenges when learning a language is how to have a good pronunciation.
So don’t worry, here are some tips to improve your pronunciation ; but remember that you must be patient, dedicated, consistent and highly motivated to achieve it.
The most important tip
- You have to lose your fear of speaking, you have to be like a child who is not afraid to make mistakes and errors. Remember that nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes when we learn a new language.
We learn from mistakes; at the beginning we aren’t going to speak perfectly, but in order to improve our pronunciation we have to speak to get used to the phonemes.
Other tips
- Separate words into syllables to make it easier to pronounce them, this should only be done at the beginning and as you get more practice you should gradually remove this separation.
- Speak slowly, many people think that speaking very fast means speaking well, but in reality this is not the case.
Start by speaking slowly and articulating very well the words you are saying so you can see how the words are pronounced.
- Study a lot those sounds that you don’t know and that don’t exist in your native language.
- Listen to the language a lot and incorporate it into your daily life, try to do things you enjoy (like watching movies and series) that include the language.
- Observe them and observe yourself, analyze how the natives speak the language to see how their mouth movements are so you can imitate them.
Technology can be your best ally
If you’re still concerned about your pronunciation take advantage of technology by downloading apps to improve your skills. There are lots of apps focused on pronunciation, such as LearnEnglish Sounds Rigth by The British Council, English Phonetics & Vocabulary or even Phonics World by Oxford.
If you want to practice with native speakers then try language learning apps and talk as much as you can.
Next time your talking to someone try to apply these tips to improve your pronunciation. You’ll notice the difference!
