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Common Pronunciation Errors for French Learners Of English
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Watch the French President, Emmanual Macron make a speech in English and learn about some of the most common errors made by French people when they speak English. Consonant ‘h’ French speakers often have difficulty pronouncing the English consonant /h/ at the beginning of words because the /h/ sound is generally silent in French.…
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Mastering the Pronunciation of ‘T’ and ‘D’ in Native English
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Did you know that the letters ‘T’ and ‘D’ don’t always sound like /t/ or /d/ in native English speech? The way we pronounce them depends on the sounds that come before or after them. If you learn and apply the five pronunciation rules below, your spoken English will sound much more fluent and…
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The 12 ‘simple’ English vowels: tips on mouth position and movement
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Many of my students have problems with pronouncing the English vowels, and sometimes, it’s not much that they can’t pronounce them, but rather, it’s that they can’t tell the difference between 2 vowels that may sound close or similar. They may really struggle with distinguishing between minimal pairs such as ‘ship’ and ‘sheep’, ‘walk’…
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Mary crease moss and a hoppy new ear!
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Since we’re just a few days away from Christmas Eve, I thought I should tell you how to say it without sounding funny (in the negative way). It’s very unlikely that people won’t understand you when you greet them with “Merry Christmas” or “Happy New Year” because they are expecting it right? Let me…
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The stubborn pronunciation problems of Japanese learners
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Japanese are stubborn, so are their pronunciation problems Japanese students of English struggle with their pronunciation problems. No matter how advanced the speakers are, no matter how long the learners have been learning or speaking English for, some (phonetic) mistakes are real stubborn aren’t they? They keep happening over and over and Japanese students…
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Bad pronunciation: 3 don’ts
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Bad pronunciation comes basically from 3 reasons that your pronunciation may not be good enough or clear enough. We’ll refer to these 3 reasons as the 3 don’ts. We’ll use the following sentence to demonstrate the 3 dont’s. I will get back to you as soon as possible (you often say or hear that…
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Putin’ up with Putin!
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Not that my website has anything to do with politics but when Mr. Putin decides to get himself into the kind of mess he’s gotten himself into, one’s got to pause and try to figure out why this man’s just lost all his marbles, invaded a country with thousands of troops and hundreds of…
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The 9 most important sounds for fluent English!
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Aren’t all sounds important for fluent English? Yes absolutely. Yet, there are 9 sounds or phonemes which, in my opinion, are crucial for clear and fluent English. The reason that I consider these phonemes to be critical is their frequency. In other words, they are more common than other sounds, hence important. If you…
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Spoken English through rap music
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Why rap music is good for improving English speaking and listening? Basically, I think of rap as the modern and hip version of tongue twisters. We all know what tongue twisters are good for. Rap though could potentially play a more powerful role in training the learner’s mouth and ears in producing and perceiving…
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The schwa sound explained
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What is the schwa sound? It is a very LAZY and typically quick and short. In the world of colors, it is equivalent to GREY. In the world of drinks, it is equivalent to water, NO TASTE! Got the idea? I say it’s lazy, because we don’t need to make any effort with the…