Think of a situation where you are trying to speak something or say something to someone, but they are not being able to understand you, the reason being your incorrect pronunciation. Most of the time we hear phrases such as, “ Can you please repeat?” or “Sorry, Can you say that again?”, and all these phrases come to our ears just because of our incorrect pronunciation. So, here in this article, I am going to provide you with some of the best tips that can help you improve your pronunciation.
Gather Information Regarding Basic English Skills and become proficient in the language and speak fluently with confidence. Try the Tips over here and Improve your English Writing and Speaking Skills.
Significance of Proper Pronunciation
The art of speaking correctly can be a challenging task for some people. To pronounce a word or sentence correctly, one needs to learn and follow the rules of grammar. Correct pronunciation can help you achieve all the success in life. At the same time, any sort of incorrect pronunciation can put you in a problematic situation. Pronouncing correctly can reward you, and at the same time, incorrect pronunciation can put you in trouble. The medium in which we communicate with others requires perfect pronunciation, as incorrect pronunciation can become a hindrance in the way of communication.
Imagine you are in an interview and you mispronounce certain words or sentences, will you be selected for the job?. Will it form a good impression on your employers?. No, it won’t, and at the same time, you may lose the opportunity of the job. But, if you speak fluently and that too with all the correct pronunciations it might help you get a competitive edge over the others.
Good Pronunciation helps in good communication and avoids the chances of miscommunication. Proper and perfect pronunciation can help you overcome the fear of speaking in public. Sometimes it so happens that we want to speak, but due to our incorrect pronunciation, we fear speaking in public or on stage. With correct pronunciation, you can quickly get to know what a person wants to convey with his/her words. We, often come across situations where we have doubts about someone’s speech or in some lectures, but we are too shy to ask the doubts because of our incorrect pronunciation. So, it is very important to learn the correct pronunciation of various words and sentences to overcome the fear of public speaking and avoid the chances of miscommunication.
Procedure I Followed to Correct My Pronunciation
Honestly speaking, it takes months of hearing, speaking, and practice to be able to pronounce correctly. In the initial months of starting, there are a lot of problems and a ton of mistakes, but as it is said that mistakes are the step towards success. Even in my case, it was the same, I too committed a lot of mistakes, but the best part was I learned to correct them. Here, I am going to list down the steps that I followed to correct my pronunciation.
1. Listen Properly
The First and the foremost step in the learning of pronunciation is to listen carefully. We need to listen to the speaker carefully to understand and differentiate between different words. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to distinguish between certain words, for example; Sleep and Slip. Proper and careful listening can reduce this difficulty to a greater extent. To learn to listen carefully, one can start listening to various speeches on youtube or can also prefer listening to news channels. By proper listening, you can be learning how to pronounce certain words correctly.
2. Note The Words That Are Difficult To Pronounce
The second step in the learning procedure would be noting the words that you feel difficult to pronounce. This will make it easier to practice those noted words on a regular basis. When you note down a difficult word, try to find its correct pronunciation and practice it until you pronounce the words correctly.
3. Notice Mouth Movement While You Speak
Next thing that I did was, When I practised the pronunciation of different words, I would simply note the movement of my lips and mouth. Most often, the pronunciation of a word depends on the way we make you lips and mouth move. For the correct pronunciation and correct movement of lips, one can watch other people’s lip movement while they are speaking. This will help you to know the correct mouth movement while pronouncing a word.
4. Break The Difficult Words
This is one of the most important and required steps in the process of learning pronunciation. If you feel that a word is very complicated to pronounce then try breaking the words into fragments, for example, let’s say “precious” here we can break the word as per its sound such as “phrase-uhs”. Thus, breaking the words according to the sounds each fragment of the word produces can help you easily remember and pronounce the word.
5. Speak and Record Yourself
This is one tip that a person can follow to find out the errors in his/her pronunciation. When someone records themselves, it helps them to find out the incorrect pronunciation of the words. This can help them to a great extent to correct themselves. Some people feel self-conscious while doing so, even I felt the same while I started recording myself. But trust me, this has helped me a lot to correct myself in terms of pronunciation.
6. Practice Repeatedly
As we all know, practice makes a man perfect. This is the last step that I followed while practicing to pronounce correctly. When you practice repeatedly remember to leave a gap in the times of practice. Suppose, if you practice the today, then leave an interval of 2-3 days, then again try leaving a gap of one week, then a month and so on. By doing this, two things will improve. First, it will increase your ability to remember, and second it will help you to pronounce correctly.
Conclusion
Pronunciation can be a difficult task at times, but with practice, it can help you achieve all the success you want. Proper pronunciation leads to excellent communication and avoids miscommunication. One should not feel ashamed of mispronunciation; instead, he/she should try and correct their pronunciation. Perfect pronunciation can be of great help and can help you form a good first impression on others.