Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Pronunciation: don't panic!




Pronouncing English well is quite difficult, especially for Spanish speakers. Sometimes the spelling of words has nothing to do with how they sound. There is a famous joke that says that the word "fish" could actually be written like "ghoti". Here's how:



  • "gh" would sound like an /f/ (as in "laugh")
  • "o" would sound like /i/ (as in "women")
  • "ti" would sound like /sh/ (as in "dictation")

  • So, yes. Pronouncing English can be hard. Fortunately there are lots of websites these days that can be of help. Here are some of my favourites:

    http://howjsay.com is a nice and easy to use pronunciation dictionary.

    http://www.forvo.com/ is great for all kinds of words, but especially for proper nouns like names of surames, cities or words that aren't usually in the dictionary. 

    http://www.shiporsheep.com/ is great for contrasting pairs of phonemes (sounds), which will help you notice the difference between different sounds. This will definitely make you pronounce things better.

    BBC Learning English has a great section for pronunciation. It has got videos, quizzes and radio programmes, so it is very useful and complete.

    But the most important thing is to listen to a lot of English and never be afraid to make a mistake!

    Update: You can learn the different phonemic symbols through this interactive chart at www.englishclub.com

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