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Questions
about Spain?
Write to David at:
dbolton99b@yahoo.es
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Practicing correct pronunciation on your own |
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Even after you have learned
how to pronounce the words in your target language, you will have to
continue to practice. Saying foreign words is, in part, a sort of "athletic"
activity, in that correct pronunciation can only be achieved if we make the
effort to position our mouth, lips and tongue in a certain way - and that
way is often quite different from that which we use to say words in English.
Take the Spanish "D" or "T", for instance. Spaniards place
their tongues between their teeth when they pronounce these sounds,
something an English-speaker would never do for these letters; we only do it
for our "th" sound. Or the French "u" sound (which is very similar to the
German "ü"). To correctly utter this vowel sound, you form you lips as
though you were going to whistle, and then try to say an "ee" sound (as in
our word "seem"). The proper French "u" can only be said if the lips are in
that almost-closed "whistling" position. Of course, we don't have this sound
in English.
Knowing how to form the sounds in the
foreign language you
are learning isn't enough. You must be able to immediately and
spontaneously produce them whenever you read or speak that language. In
other words, you must train yourself to achieve proper articulation
automatically, without having to think about it. This is at times no easy
task, since when you speak a foreign language, you must concentrate mainly
on what you want to say, on the necessary words and on the correct
grammar. If, on top of all this, you have to think about pronunciation as
well, there's a good chance that one of these elements will come up short.
Therefore, you should try to do some pronunciation training every day so
that speaking correctly becomes second nature to you. The following is an
exercise that will help you to greatly improve your pronunciation, and keep
it "in shape".
Get a book in your target language, preferably something that
is not too far beyond your reading ability, and that deals with a subject
that is of interest to you (it's always easier to pick up and read a book
that you like, isn't it?). If you are a beginner, you might want to pay a
native speaker to record a few pages of the book for you, so that you can
hear how the text should sound. Or, you can purchase an audio-book in your
target language, and get the written text as well. (click HERE**to see a
list of suggestions for audio books in Spanish, French, German, Italian and
Japanese). Plan to read a few paragraphs from that book every day, following
these instructions:
- You will read aloud for five to seven minutes. It's obvious why
you should do this, is it not? After all, you want to practice
pronunciation, and that's not easy to do if you don't actually say
the words!
- Read very slowly, exaggerating every sound in
every word you say. You will try to pronounce each sound in each word as
perfectly as possible, that is, as close to a native speaker's
pronunciation as you can.
Perhaps you have seen that excercise they make people do in
acting school: they tell you to hold a pen between your teeth, and while
doing so, to read a text. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? After all, it is
completely impossible to pronounce the words well with a pen in your
mouth. But this exercise does, of course, make very good sense: the point is
to help you become aware of how the mouth should move to enunciate a
word perfectly. That pen in your mouth forces you to strain the muscles of
your mouth, lips and tongue in order to try to make your words
understandable. By doing so, you become aware of which muscles must be put
into play to produce the various sounds. After a couple of minutes of this,
when you take the pen out of your mouth, you will see that you can suddenly
pronounce the words much more precisely than you could before you did the
"pen" exerercise. (Try it out; you'll see what I mean!)
There's no need to employ the "pen trick" when reading in
your new language; nonetheless, you should strive to articulate every word
with decisiveness, clarity and great precision. Don't hurry: as I mentioned
before, you should speak very slowly. Read about 3 minute's worth of
text, then repeat it, attempting to improve on the first reading (if you are
at a more advanced level, you can read 5-7 minute's worth of text without
repeating.)
- Do this every day, without fail. (well, if you do skip a day, don't
worry, it's no disaster. Just be sure you start again the following day.)
After only a few weeks, you will notice that when you read in
your target language at a faster, more "normal" speed, your pronunciation
will have improved significantly. Nonetheless, keep up this exercise,
preferably making it a regular habit. You'll see that the rewards you reap
will make it well worth your while.
Next:
13)
View the world through rose-colored glasses - visit
another country!
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