How Can I Improve My English Pronunciation| Part 1| VOA english

How Can I Improve My English
Pronunciation? (Part 1)

Many people want to sound more like native English speakers. So
they send questions about pronunciation to us here at VOA Learning English. We
often get asked:

Question:

“How
can I improve my English pronunciation?”

Answer:

Today
we will look at two simple things you can do to improve your pronunciation.

Speak loudly enough

The
first is to speak loudly enough.

Many
people learning a foreign language worry about having an accent or
saying words differently because of their mother tongue.

Yet
there are plenty of people who have learned English as a second or even third
language. Take, for example, Hollywood actors Antonio Banderas and Jackie Chan.
The two are non-native English speakers. Banderas has a Spanish accent, while
Chan has a Chinese accent. But both men are easy to understand, partly because
they speak loudly and clearly.

When
speaking, the goal should be communicating to be easily understood, not
removing your accent, which is often hard to do.

To
read more on this subject, see our story called Keep Your Identity While
Changing Your Accent.

Listen for patterns

The
second thing you can do to improve pronunciation is to listen for patterns.

English
sentences have a rhythm. In other words, you
will find a kind of systematic arrangement, or order, to the words and expressions.
When you listen to someone speaking English, try humming along with the rhythm
of their sentences. Think of yourself making sounds like that of an insect.

Here
is an example: What are you doing in there?

The
line shows how the voice changes:

Here’s what it sounds like to hum this sentence.

It
is easy to make sounds while keeping your mouth closed.

Some
English learners like to listen to music and sing songs. These exercises will
help you to learn the rhythms of the language.

For
more exercises, see our story Improve Your Pronunciation by Training Your Ears.

Next
time, we will talk about some more things you can do to improve your
pronunciation.

And
that’s Ask
a Teacher!

I’m
Jill Robbins.

Dr.
Jill Robbins wrote this story for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the
editor.

Do you have a question for the teacher? We want
to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or email us at learningenglish@voanews.com.