How to Improve Pronunciation and Neutralize Your Accent?

One of the most challenging aspects of attaining fluency in English language is making sure that you pronounce all the English words as clearly as possible. This is particularly challenging for new learners because they get to hear different pronunciations for the same word from different people. Considering the fact that, people from different parts of the world pronounce the same word differently. Moreover, it’s pretty easy to learn and then master a completely new accent, if you are a child, but becomes fairly difficult when you are an adult. Still, there are a lot of techniques you can take into consideration for improving your pronunciation.

An integral part of speaking English correctly is making sure that you are aware of how many parts an English word is divided into. One of the best ways you can get used to hearing syllables is by listening to as many English words as you can and distinguish if you can break that word appropriately by making use of your fingers or different objects to represent the syllables that make up a certain word.

Learn To Distinguish Difference in Sounds

Some words, such as kit/cat or pen/pin can be hard to listen to when you are simply learning or when you are listening to somebody who speaks very fast. On the other hand, you can simply train your ear by making use of tongue twisters to train yourself on how to hear diverse English words that sound somewhat similar. Reading out loud can also be of great help.

Focus on Intonation and Sentence Structure

English is unique and intonation can completely change what exactly an English word means or make the listener actually think they are hearing another word. Moreover, unlike languages such as French that makes use of accent marks to guide speakers on how to pronounce every single word correctly, English has only a few accent symbols. You can listen to different phrases and words online or try to hum certain English words rather than saying them.

This will make you concentrate on how a word is supposed to sound. If you are ever doubtful, you can look for individual English words in the dictionary and make use of their phonetic English spelling to guide you with regards to raising or lowering your voice.

Breathing

One of the most difficult aspects of pronouncing a word correctly is knowing when to breathe, so that you learn the language correctly. Considering the fact that, different languages cause speakers to make use of different parts of their throats or mouths to utter a word perfectly.

Pro Tip: It is highly recommended to make use of a tissue paper and exercise to distinguish when you are breathing while speaking English. Simply, hold the tissue paper facing your mouth and utter an assortment of words. Try to observe when you puff while breathing, when you pause, and observe how the tissue behaves when you say something new.

All these tips will certainly help you improve your pronunciation as well as neutralize your accent, so what are you waiting for? Start practicing new words right away and master English in a short span of time.