How to improve my poor pronunciation?

[hanky]

Dear teachers,
I have learned english for years but all skills that I have learned are reading and writing, I spent too much time on grammar. I rarely train speaking and listening skills and during class we use our mother language to communicate. (This is the way we learn english in vietnam). As a results my listening, speaking skills are extremely bad, especially my pronunciation. (I did not know how bad my pronunciation was until I went abroad). It turns that I always pronounce wrongly words and that why listener can not understand me. Furthermore due to this reason I feel hardly to understand other people (I am now in Germany). I would like to improve my pronunciation skill by learning basic sounds from beginning but I do not know how to do that. May I have any suggestions or comments?
I am looking forward to receiving your replies.
Thank you very much.

[anreak]

I'm not a teacher but I think the most popular way to improve your pronunciation is reading outloud. I did it and it worked for me. There are some sites like this: VOA News - Voice of America Homepage - News in 45 Languages where you can read and then listen to the news and check your pronunciation.

[hanky]

Originally Posted by anreak

I'm not a teacher but I think the most popular way to improve your pronunciation is reading outloud. I did it and it worked for me. There are some sites like this: VOA News - Voice of America Homepage - News in 45 Languages where you can read and then listen to the news and check your pronunciation.

Thanks, I see. But the point is that I can not imitate these words. I can speak words out loud approximately, but as I said they did not sound well.

[anreak]

Well, in fact nobody can speak exactly like a native. This difference will vary according to the first language of the student. I notice that the asian people have more difficulty with english than people from Europe, for example. I hope some teacher can help you. Good luck.

Pronunciation and Phonetics - UsingEnglish.com ESL Forum

[guzhao67]

i'm not a teacher. but for me the best way is to read aloud, and you should do it everyday. the point is not how many hours you practice that on one particular day, but how often you do that in, for example, a month. just try, 30 mins a day, and keep practicing that way for a month.

[Jaskin]

Hello hanky
Try :
BBC Learning English | Pronunciation Tips
or
BBC Learning English | Home page
The links are to BBc English, so it's BrEng.

Advice from a learner.

Listen then listen again, try make notes, read the script, listen again reading the script.
I borrow Penguin Readers books with CD or tape listen read and repeat.
I learn the pronunciation alphabet and got access to the dictionaries that have sound files and a written pronunciation.
Say it record yourself. Compare.
Anyway that's what I've been doing.

Cheers,

[supada]

Hanky,

It seems that we have the same problem. Now I live in Los Angeles. Sometimes I have to speak even 2-3 times to be understood by native speakers. : P

I think when practicing by reading outloud make me speak more smooth. Now I don't mind whatever accent I would earn but speak comprehensible English to people. LOL

[mxreader]

Originally Posted by hanky

(I did not know how bad my pronunciation was until I went abroad). It turns that I always pronounce wrongly words and that why listener can not understand me. Furthermore due to this reason I feel hardly to understand other people (I am now in Germany). I would like to improve my pronunciation skill by learning basic sounds from beginning but I do not know how to do that. May I have any suggestions or comments?
I am looking forward to receiving your replies.
Thank you very much.

My advice would be to immerse yourself with the right kinds of sounds. If you can find ways to do this in an enjoyable way that would be helpful for learning. For example, if you like to watch movies, then get some DVD's and watch over and over. Make sure you hear lots of dialogue and the right sounds. No use watching some violent movie where its all about killing and blowing things up and where the dialogue consists of nothing more than a few swear words in some local accent.



If you can afford to get an ESL tutor, then that would help too of course.

[SarahKSA]

Hanky,

I am not a teacher but I thought this may help. I had the same problem. However, I came over it to great extent. The reason is that I tried to listen as much as I can to native speakers, and some members posted good links here. You should listen to them even if you don't understand just to practice you ears. Plus, some websites offer slow pronunciation of word, so you can practice after them as many times and slow as you can and gradually you increase the speed of producing words, and if you try to write their pronunciations by your own language(in early stages only), that will let you remember the correct pronunciation easily and quickly. You should practice them as MUCH as you can. Try to say few simple words instead of using ones in your own language whenever you speak with people, whether they are native speakers or Germen.

I hope that our teachers accept my point of view