The Complete Guide to Improving Your English Pronunciation

By

Do you sometimes find it difficult to make yourself understood – even though you know you are using the correct English?

Do you find it hard to understand mother-tongue English speakers? Are you anxious about having phone conversations in English?

Working on your English pronunciation is a way to solve all these problems.

Teacher during a phonetics lesson - copyright London Teacher Training College

Perfect pronunciation isn’t necessary to make yourself understood in English, so we will focus on the key areas that will improve your ability to communicate in English – speaking it and understanding it – and on the most common pronunciation problems for Italian speakers.

Why is pronunciation important? Here’s a true story that illustrates a communication problem due to pronunciation – between two mother tongue speakers of English:

A few years ago I went on holiday to Seattle in the US, and I needed to make a phone call. The public phone box only took 25c coins, called ‘quarters’, so I went into a shop to get some change.

I said to the cashier:

“Could you change this dollar bill for four quarters, please?”

She looked at me, mystified.

I repeated my question several times, and she kept saying:

“I’m sorry, what?”

Finally, I realized that she couldn’t understand the way I was saying ‘quarter’, with my British English accent. The American English pronunciation of this word is very different.

(To hear the difference between the UK and US pronunciation, go to the Cambridge dictionary entry for ‘quarter’ and click on the speaker icons under the word.)

Example definition from the Cambridge dictionary, for the word 'quarter'

I had to put on my best American accent to make myself understood. The problem was that I expect the word ‘quarter’ to sound a particular way, and the American cashier expected it sound another way.

Have you had this problem in English? Do you expect a word to sound a particular way, but discover that its pronunciation is very different?

Pronunciation: as important as grammar

Learning how to pronounce sounds, words and sentences correctly is just as important as learning the grammar of the language.

This guide will help you improve your pronunciation, avoid common problems, and understand other English speakers.

There are 3 main aspects of pronunciation you need to focus on:

  1. phonetics: the individual sounds in a language
  2. word stress: the syllables in a word and where to place the main stress or accent
  3. sentence stress: how we pronounce words when we put them together in sentences

In the first part of this guide, we’re going to look at the sounds that make up language, and in the second part we’ll focus on word stress and sentence stress. Part 3 will give you some practical tips and ideas for making rapid progress with your pronunciation.

—

Part 1: Mastering the sounds of English

The individual sounds in a word are called phonemes. We produce a lot of different sounds when we speak, and these sounds are often very different between one language and another.

You don’t need to reproduce every language-specific sound perfectly to be able to speak well – but it’s really helpful to know:

  • a) what sounds characterize a language, and
  • b) which sounds are the most challenging for you to make and to understand.

In this section we’ll look at some ideas and tools to help you understand sound systems in languages, particularly in English.

If you look up the word ‘resource’ in the Cambridge dictionary, you will find two helpful features to help you pronounce the word correctly:

Example definition from the online Cambridge dictionary, showing how to listen to the word and the phonetic transcription

The yellow arrow on the image below is pointing at the first feature, a speaker icon which will play the word for you – in both a British English and American accent.

This is useful up to a point: the word ‘resource’ contains a vowel sound that doesn’t exist in Italian – the same sound that’s contained in the words ‘more’ ‘door’ ‘saw’ and ‘four’. This sound is represented by the symbol /ɔ:/.

The second helpful feature of this dictionary is a phonetic transcription of the word, shown by the green arrow.

Don’t be afraid of the phonetic alphabet – it doesn’t take long to learn to make sense of it.

Even if you’ve never read phonemic transcriptions (words written in the phonetic alphabet to show how they’re pronounced) before, by the end of this article you will understand how to read them.

Fun facts about phonemes

3 steps to mastering phonemes

There are 3 things to focus on with phonemes: the alphabet, understanding different English accents, and avoiding pronunciation traps.

1. Saying the alphabet

English spelling is hard. Italian has a very clear relationship between the spelling and the sound of the word – English doesn’t.

You’ll be happy to know that spelling is a huge problem for mother-tongue English speakers as well!

There are many words that look like they should rhyme because they have the same spelling, but they don’t. For example:

seat – sweat, paste – caste, eight – height, put – nut, granite – unite, horse – worse

There are also words with more than one meaning, such as ‘tear’, which means ‘strappare‘ /teə/, and ‘lacrima‘ / tɪə/, and changes pronunciation according to the meaning.

There are also words that rhyme, in spite of having completely different spelling: tear – hair – prayer – mayor

Mother-tongue English speakers spend a lot of time spelling words to each other, names, surnames, addresses, email addresses, etc., not just over the phone, but face to face as well. It’s very important to learn the correct pronunciation of the English alphabet so you can do this too, and avoid misunderstandings. It’s always a good idea to check the spelling of names and addresses carefully.

When you say the English alphabet, pay particular attention to the pronunciation of the vowels (a, e, i, o, u), to the letters that aren’t in the Italian alphabet, (j, k, w, x, y), and to the letter R, pronounced ‘aahhhhh’ in British English (more about this below).

NOTE: there are one or two differences in pronunciation of the single letters between British and American English. Brits say ‘zed’, Americans say ‘zee’. Americans pronounce the /r/ sound in the R. It’s fine if you do too.

Here is a good video showing the differences between the American and the British pronunciation of /r/

It doesn’t take long to learn to pronounce the alphabet correctly. It’s a good idea to take the same approach to memorising the English alphabet as you did to learning your multiplication tables when you were a child: repeat it until it sticks!

2. Understanding different English accents

There are many different English accents, with different vowel and consonant sounds. The ‘disappearing R’ is a peculiarity of the standard British accent, for example, but not of all British English accents.

So what is the point of focussing on the standard British accent if it’s not going to help you understand American, Australian or Scottish accents?

Here are some answers to this question:

a) If you pay attention to pronunciation it becomes easier to understand English in general, and to hear the differences between the different accents.

b) If you want help with understanding specific English accents, check out these websites:

Perfect Strangers is a website dedicated to the differences between American and British English

Fonetiks will show you, through recordings and exercises, how to pronounce and understand different types of English accent, including Irish, Scottish, Welsh, South African, Australian, Indian and Canadian accents.

c. The best way to understand English is to listen to it as much as possible by, for example, watching TV programmes in English whenever possible. We will look at this more below.

3. Avoiding pronunciation traps

If you pronounce English words according to the way they are spelled, as if they were Italian words, it will be difficult for people to understand what you’re saying, and you’ll find it impossible to understand mother-tongue speakers of English.

When you learn a word in English, focus first on how to pronounce it – and then only after learn how to spell it.

There are 4 common pronunciation traps:

Trap 1: Silent letters

Let’s look at the word ‘Wednesday’. This word, like many others in English, has letters that you don’t pronounce. It’s pronounced /’wenzdei/. To hear the pronunciation follow this link and click on the ‘listen’ icon.

Cartoon about silent letters - the letter K

You don’t pronounce the /i/ in the words ‘fruit‘, ‘suit‘, ‘juice‘: /fru:t/, /su:t/ and /ʤu:s/

You don’t pronounce the /l/ in the words ‘half‘, ‘calm‘, ‘talk‘, ‘walk‘, ‘salmon‘, ‘could‘, ‘would‘, ‘should‘

There is no /b/ in ‘climb‘, or any /p/ in ‘cupboard‘ and ‘receipt‘.

Trap 2: Consonants and intrusive vowel sounds

As mentioned earlier, it’s hard work speaking another language, forcing your face into new shapes to make new sounds.

One big difference between English and Italian is the way consonants go together. Italian words tend to end in vowel sounds. English words often start and end with consonants.

It’s difficult for an Italian speaker of English to put all those consonants together without introducing some vowel sounds.

Take the word ‘equipment‘, /i’kwipmənt/, for example. You will probably want to insert a vowel sound between the P and the M, and possibly after the T, making it ‘equip-a-ment-a’. ‘Apartment‘, /ə’pa:tmənt/, becomes ‘apart-a-ment-a’.

It’s actually quite difficult for native speakers of English to pronounce all of the consonants in these words as well, but we don’t introduce vowel sounds – native speakers will not pronounce the consonant before the M, so it will sound like ‘equi-ment’ and ‘appah-ment’.

This has an enormous impact on other people’s perception of how well you speak English. If you can eliminate these intrusive vowel sounds, your English will sound twice as good.

Trap 3: Vowel sounds

How do you pronounce the words ‘early’, ‘mountain’ and ‘country’? You are probably mispronouncing the vowel sounds.

‘Early‘ is pronounced /’ɜ:li/, ‘mountain‘ is /’mauntin/, ‘country‘ is /’kʌntri/. In each case the vowel sound is very, very different from what you expect from the spelling.

When you see two vowels together, you will probably try to pronounce all of the vowel sounds. However, in English we have four types of vowel sound, three of which we’ve already mentioned: long, short and diphthongs.

The fourth is the weak form, represented by the symbol /ə/, and is the shortest, weakest vowel sound in the alphabet. To understand the function of this sound we need to talk about word stress – more about that later.

There are 7 different vowel sounds in Italian, but in English there are 24 vowel sounds, most of which don’t exist in Italian. It is probably very difficult for you to hear the differences between them – although they’re quite clear to English ears.

It’s useful to do some specific listening exercises, called ‘minimal pairs’ exercises to learn to distinguish between the different sounds, for example in the words ‘egg’, ‘cat’ and ‘cup’. You can find a lot of exercises on YouTube.

Remember to check the pronunciation of the words and phrases you learn in English – even the ones you think you know.

Trap 4: The disappearing R in standard British English…and other accents

The R is nearly always pronounced in many regional British and Scottish accents, and in most American accents, so it’s fine if you want to pronounce all the Rs in English.

However, in standard British English pronunciation we mostly don’t pronounce the R when it appears after a long vowel sound or diphthong, or at the ends of words. ‘Warmer’ is /’wɔ:mə/, ‘girl’ is /gɜ:l/, ‘early’ is /’ɜ:li/, ‘more’ is /mɔ:/ and ‘or’ is /ɔ:/.

This video after 1:57 gives a good explanation of when you do and don’t pronounce the R in British English:

The problem is understanding mother-tongue British-English speakers. You don’t have to sound like a mother-tongue English speaker to speak good English and make yourself understood, but you might have to work with them, and understand them.

—

Part 2: Mastering stress

So far we’ve looked at the individual sounds in words and how we put them together to make words.

Now we’re going to look at what happens to sounds when you put them together in longer words (word stress), and then at what happens to words in sentences (sentence stress).

Word stress

Words have syllables. A syllable has one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants. Don’t confuse this with the Italian ‘sillabare‘, which is more similar in meaning to ‘spelling’.

Words can have one syllable, like ‘can’, ‘work’, ‘start’, ‘bread’.

In longer English words, as in Italian, there is always one syllable that is stressed (shown in bold in the examples below).

Two syllables: hun|gry, wa|ter, a|gain, ba|loon, en|ter, etc.

Three syllables: ba|na|na, con|fe|rence, di|ffi|cult, e|xer|cise, dan|ger|ous, e|quip|ment, etc.

More than three syllables: ob|li|ga|tion, te|le|vi|sion, etc.

Note: in the phonemic transcription of words of more than one syllable, the stress is shown by an apostrophe (‘) before the stressed syllable: difficult /’difikəlt/, television /telə’viʒən/, again /ə’gen/.

There are 4 things about stress you need to pay attention to:

  1. similar words in English and Italian
  2. WEAK sounds
  3. spelling vs. syllables, and
  4. different stress in the noun, verb and adjective forms of a word

Let’s look at each of these 4 points:

  1. There are a lot of words that are similar in English and Italian, including false friends (words with similar spelling and origins but different meanings). BE CAREFUL: the stressed syllable is often different.

    English — Italian

    e|co|no|my — e|co|no|mi|a
    in|teres|ting — in|te|re|ssan|te
    in|te|lli|gent — in|te|lli|gen|te
    ad|ver|tise|ment * — av|ver|ti|men|to
    ad|ver|tise — av|ver|ti|re

    (* Listen to the UK and US pronunciations. What’s the difference?)

  2. The syllables that are not stressed often have a short, weak vowel sound. Unlike in Italian, where all the vowels sounds are given equal importance, only the stressed syllable has a distinct, specific sound.

    The most common weak sounds are /ə/ and /i/.

    water is /’wɔ:tə/
    economy is /i’kɒnəmi/
    dangerous is /’deinʤərəs/
    advertisement is /əd’vɜ:tismənt/

  3. Spelling won’t always tell you how many syllables there are in a word. For example:

    comfortable has three syllables – /’kʌmftəbl/
    Wednesday has two syllables – /’wenzdei/
    temperature has three syllables – /’tempriʧə/
    interesting has three syllables – /’intrəstiŋ/
    rarely has two syllables – /’reəli/

  4. Often the stress in a multi-syllable word will change according to whether it’s a verb, a noun or an adjective. Make sure you make a note of the stress on the different grammatical forms of a word.

    verb — noun/person — adjective

    pho|to|graph — pho|to|gra|phy — pho|to|gra|phic

    pro|gress — pro|gress — pro|gre|ssive

    per|fect — per|fec|tion — per|fect

Sentence stress – what happens to sounds in sentences

Multi-syllable words contain stressed and weak syllables. In English the stressed syllable is noticeably louder and longer than the unstressed syllables.

We’ve also seen that in words that contain pairs of consonants, like ‘equipment’ and ‘apartment’, the first consonant might disappear.

The same kind of thing happens in sentences: when we put words together in sentences, certain words are stressed, and others are unstressed. It can sometimes be very hard to hear the unstressed words at all.

In English it can be difficult to distinguish between individual sounds in words, and it can also be difficult to distinguish between individual words in sentences. Strange things happen to individual sounds when we put words together in sentences.

Consonants disappear or change, or travel to the beginning of the next word. Below are some examples of sentences with disappearing, changing and travelling consonants.

TIP: If you want to hear what the phrases below sound like, go to the demonstration page at Oddcast and copy or type in the sentences. If you want the avatar to say the sentences with an English accent, find a UK voice under the ‘voice’ option.

The Oddcast demonstration page with an avatar to speak with various English accents

  • ‘next please’ /neks pli:z/ – the T at the end of ‘next’ disappears
  • ‘I don’t know’ /aɪ dəʊ nəʊ/ – the T at the end of ‘don’t’ disappears
  • ‘old man’ /əʊl mæn/ – the D at the end of ‘old’ disappears
  • ‘stand there’ /stæn ðeə/ – the D at the end of ‘stand’ disappears
  • ‘ground plan’ /graʊm plæn/ – the D at the end of ‘ground’ disappears, and N becomes M
  • ‘action planning’ /ækʃəm plænɪŋ/ – the N at the end of ‘action’ becomes M
  • ‘brown bear’ /braʊm beə/ – the N at the end of ‘brown’ becomes M
  • ‘common market’ /kɒmə mɑ:kɪt/ – the N at the end of ‘common’ disappears
  • ‘bus shelter’ /bʊ ʃeltə/ – The S at the end of ‘bus’ disappears

—

Part 3: Next steps – useful tips and good pronunciation habits

Inspiration for a presentation - copyright ImagineCup http://www.flickr.com/photos/imaginecup/

We’ve looked at the pronunciation of individual sounds, at word stress in words with more than one syllable, and at the pronunciation of words in sentences.

What can you do to rapidly improve your English pronunciation and your comprehension of spoken English? Here are 3 good language-learning habits to develop:

1. When you learn a new word, focus first on the pronunciation, then on the spelling

Here is a word pronunciation checklist:

  • Check the pronunciation at the Cambridge dictionary.
  • What is the main vowel sound?
  • How many vowel sounds are there?
  • Are there any weak vowel sounds?
  • What are the consonant sounds?
  • How many syllables are there? If the word has more than one syllable, which syllable is stressed?
  • Is the spelling of the word confusing or helpful?
  • If the word has different grammatical forms – noun, verb, adjective, person – does the stress change?
  • And don’t forget to say the word out loud a few times – get used to the movements your mouth needs to make the sounds.

2. Listen and repeat – practise putting English words together

The best way to improve your pronunciation of connected speech is to copy the speech of native speakers.

Listening and repeating is a repetitive, mechanical exercise that trains you to make the right English sounds in the right sequence.

It’s often more useful if the sentences you are listening to and repeating are nonsense. You just need to pay attention to the sound, not to the meaning of what you’re saying.

Here are some online resources that you can use to listen and repeat:

  • Do you like singing along to your favourite music? On YouTube and Lyrics Training you can find karaoke versions of most popular music. I recommend songs by The Beatles, such as ‘I am the Walrus’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ because the lyrics are nonsense, but the words are pronounced very clearly. This is an excellent way of practicing connected speech.
    Screenshot of Lyrics Training website with example music video
  • This page contains a lot of 10 minute listen and repeat exercises.

Also, have you listened to all the videos in the first part of this article, and repeated the sounds? They are a good way to practise your pronunciation and train your mouth – and then return here tomorrow and repeat the exercises.

3. Listen – to improve pronunciation and comprehension

As with understanding different English accents, the best way to improve your comprehension of spoken English is to listen to it as much as possible.

Here are some tips for listening in English:

  • Watch TV programmes (TV series, reality TV shows, anything that interests you) in English with subtitles. You are probably not used to subtitles, but in countries like Belgium, Holland and most Scandinavian countries people grow up listening to enormous amounts of English on TV, with subtitles in their own language. People from these countries usually speak excellent English as a result.

    The character of Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown - copyright Netflix
    The Crown, a great TV series for learning English

    You can watch TV programmes with subtitles in Italian or in English. There are advantages to both:

    With Italian subtitles you can always understand what’s happening and what people are saying. You can also see how expressions are translated into Italian.

    With English subtitles you can learn an enormous amount about pronunciation, in particular, the relationship between the spelling of a word and the sound, and what words sound like when they’re in a sentence together.

  • TED is a collection of fascinating, inspiring short video talks about every subject imaginable. The site has several very useful features:
    • listen to the talks with or without subtitles
    • with subtitles in your own language or in English
    • read the transcript as you listen, and if you click on any part of the transcript it will take you to that point on the video
    • download the talks and listen to them offline.

    Screenshot of the TED.com website

    Some recommended TED talks:

  • Other great listening resources are newsy.com, the BBC mini audio-series called English at Work, and the short news stories at BBC six minute English.

Conclusion

If you use some of the strategies above and get into the habit of focusing on the sounds in a word, and on the sounds of connected speech, you will notice a big improvement in your pronunciation of English and in your understanding of spoken English. You should feel much more confident speaking English.

Which strategies will work best for you? Which of these pronunciation tips did you find the most helpful? Is there anything that needs more explanation?

Please let us know in the comments section below – and if you think your friends need some help with their English pronunciation, why not help them out and share this post.

Find this useful? Let your friends know:
Send to friend
Free Email Updates

Get the latest content first. No spam, ever. Unsubscribe at any time.

Share This Page
Share this on Facebook Tweet this Share this on LinkedIn