Pronunciation Diary #2

A Work in Progress

As mentioned in Part 1 of my Pronunciation Diary, I’ve been going through some blogs to look for some advice on how to really work on my pronunciation, since this is a huge area that requires a lot of time and practice. And so what better way to improve your pronunciation than by trying to actually find out where you’re doing it all wrong! I couldn’t agree more. Unless you have some idea about what exact mistakes you are making, you will not be able to work on these specific problems and keep on repeating them! Of course, you can spot them by doing some imitation exercises on YouTube, or by receiving feedback from your teachers on one of your latest presentations. However, I personally think that the best way of finding out what mistakes you tend to make is by recording yourself and giving it to a native speaker so that he/she can tell you exactly which sounds you need to work on.  

And this is exactly what I liked about the Pronunciation Diagnostic Exercise we had to do separately before Christmas break, even though I was skeptical at first. I have to admit it felt really weird recording myself and even weirder hearing it afterwards (do I really sound like that? Haha), but after getting over it and concentrating on my pronunciation, I actually heard the sounds I need to deal with and the words I need to practice more often. The feedback given was, of course, a great help for me to see that I, for instance, pronounced the words “library” and “Mediterranean” wrong.

After finding out my mistakes, I looked them up and started “youtubing” to work more on specific sounds like the “g” sound in “vegetables”. Also, as it turned out, I pronounced the word “aluminum” with a rather British accent, and I realized that I've indeed been pronouncing some words more British, probably because I've had been listening to more British teachers lately. As I cannot mix these two accents together (obviously), I looked for some videos to help me with this and stumbled upon another useful one from Rachel Smith, where she teams up with a British native speaker to explain some of the pronunciation differences between these two completely different accents. I personally think that this should be an important part of everyone’s pronunciation practice as you need to recognize these differences to avoid mixing them up and confuse people in the future. Here’s the link to the video:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIZ78RwhSPc

And here are two more channels/links I started using and will definitely keep checking out, in addition to Rachel Smith’s. I would really recommend you giving them a try:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc2Y7xxkp5s&feature=youtu.be : Amy Walker’s “How to do an American accent”. She is simply adorable! She has a soft and pleasant voice and I like her detailed explanations and comments as she pronounces the words.
2. http://www.engvid.com/topic/pronunciation/ : “engVid’s free pronunciation lessons”. A very nice website with several native speakers going through the different sounds (v vs. w,…) and giving tips on how to understand certain expressions by breaking them down into words etc. Really helpful + witty!

After going through almost all links on the Pronunciation Practice Page, I can tell that these three are most definitely my favorite ones. Of course, this is just the beginning of this practice, and just because there are only two parts of this Pronunciation Diary, that doesn’t mean that I won’t keep working on my pronunciation afterwards. I am well aware of the fact that my accent is nowhere near as perfect; however, I wish to have a good accent by the time I finish my studies, and as I have come to realize, this can only be achieved by continuous practice and work...which I am willing to put into.

I am really looking forward to working further on my pronunciation during the semester break (that is, after surviving exam weeks) and I hope I haven’t bored you to death with this diary :)