7 Tips to Improve

Your

Pronunciation
Putonghua and

Your

Your

Kissing

7 Tips to Improve Your Pronunciation

Linguistics Theory Language Transfer: Your native language influences your target language Every country pronounces English differently L1 L2

7 Tips to Improve Your Pronunciation

L1 L2

Your local dialect (eg. Hangzhou hua) Pinyin

L3
L4

Putong Hua
English

7 Tips to Improve Your Pronunciation

REMEMBER L1 L2 L1 + L2 L3 L1 + L2 + L3 English

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Tip 1 S vs. SH Influence from L1 Local Dialect Examples: vs. vs. ?

 vs.

 vs.

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Tip 1 S vs. SH

Minimal Pairs Practice: See She Sell Shell Sore Shore Seat - Sheet Sit Shhh

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Tip 1 S vs. SH

Tongue Twister Practice:

She sells sea shells down by the sea shore

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Tip 2 i /I/ vs. /i:/ Influence from L2 - Pinyin Practice: It - Eat Sit Seat Ill Eel Still Steal Live Leave

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Tip 2 i Practice: This is it It is this Everyone wanted to know if Chuck was LIVING. Everyone wanted to know if Chuck was LEAVING. in

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Tip 3 TH - /T/ /W/ Influence from L1 + L3 examples: /T/- this, that, those, them, there /W/- thing, think, earth, birthday

Practice i + th: in, thin

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Tip 3 S vs. TH Practice: sick, thick, sick, thick sing, thing, sing, thing sink, think, sink, think He sinks, hes very fat! He thinks hes very fat!

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Tip 3 S vs. TH

Sinking or Thinking

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Tip 4 V vs. W

problem

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Tip 4 V vs. W problem English example: I like to watch TV very much

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Tip 4 V vs. W problem Putong Hua example:

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Tip 4 V vs. W problem Putong Hua (L3): L1 + L2 L3 English (L4): L2 L4

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Tip 4 V vs. W

V
1.
2. 3.

mouth wide upper teeth showing (big smile!) bite your bottom lip

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Tip 4 Practice V: V very vest vent vet

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Tip 4 V vs. W

W
1.

Round your lips 2. Like a Kiss

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Tip 4 Practice W: we west wet wary went

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Tip 4 Practice W: we what when where why weishenme

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Tip 4 Practice V & W: V, we, V, we Vest, west, vest, west Vet, wet, vet, wet Very, wary, very, wary Vent, went, vent, went

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Tip 4 Practice V & W:

We were very wary of the western vest. A whale would look silly wearing a veil. I like to watch TV very much.

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Tip 4 Practice - I + TH + W IN THIN WITHIN

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Tip 5 R vs. L /r/ /\/ vs. /l/ problem

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Tip 5 R vs. L Putong Hua L1 influences L3 Local Dialect Putong Hua L1 L4 - Local Dialect influences English

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Tip 5 R vs. L ER /\/

her, hamburger her hamburger?

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Tip 5 R vs. L AR - /r/ R are

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Tip 5 R vs. L AR - /r/ SPEAK PUTONG HUA! are, car, park, Harvard, yard Park your car in Harvard yard!

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Tip 5 R vs. L AR - /r/ WHO ARE YOU YOU ARE......................

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Tip 5 R vs. L Pronouncing /\/
1. 2. 3.

mouth round teeth open tongue floating in middle of mouth

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Tip 5 R vs. L Pronouncing /l/
1. 2. 3.

mouth wide tip of tongue touches back of top teeth VERY IMPORTANT: keep mouth wide, dont close it

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Tip 5 R vs. L Smile - Smell really her I really love her

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Tip 5 rate, late, rate, late red, led, red led read, lead, read, lead right, light, right, light wrong, long, wrong, long fresh, flesh, fresh, flesh dear, deal, dear, deal

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Tip 5 R vs. L Practice: What a marvelous tour. What a marvelous tool. This is a tough rock This is a tough lock Look! A large cloud! Look! A large crowd!

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Tip 5 R vs. L pressure pleasure Practice: My job gives me a great deal of pressure. My job gives me a great deal of pleasure.

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Tip 6

zh - /V/

pressure (sh) /F/ pleasure (zh) /V/

My job gives me a great deal of pressure. My job gives me a great deal of pleasure.

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Tip 6 zh - /V/

usually
1. 2. 3.

4.

you zh Usually!

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Tip 7 PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

1. Learning English is marvelous and it gives me a great deal of pleasure.

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Tip 7 PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

2. I really wish to improve my English.

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Tip 7 PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

3. It is usually within my ability to do this, I think!

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PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

1.
2. 3.
4.
5.

Learning English is marvelous and it gives me a great deal of pleasure. I really wish to improve my English. It is usually within my ability to do this, I think!
Park your car in Harvard yard! her hamburger?

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PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!

7 Tips to Improve
Your

Pronunciation

Your

Putonghua and
Kissing

Your

7 Tips

The End
http://chake.chinatefl.com/class/ chuck@zjei.net

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Notes from a BBS for foreign teachers: the result is a bit like someone learning tennis who thinks the only way to get better is to only ever practice it when the coach is there to watch but they only see the coach for one hour a week. The rest of the week they don't even pick up the racket. The best speakers on this campus are those who talk to each other or, at a pinch, talk to walls to practice 'th', 'v' and their ilk until their tongues and lips slip into place naturally... but no matter how often I hold these students up to everyone else by way of proof the 'I will only entrench my errors if I speak English with another Chinese' obsession continues to operate. I think neither Chuck nor I were saying that there were no pronunciation problems here.

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Notes from a BBS for foreign teachers:

I think there's a dual problem here, then; firstly that students are indeed not very far down the path to good pronunciation in comparison to where you'd expect them to be for their level of education. That, as far as I can see, is down to a lamentable lack of practice all the way through their schooling where a semester oral lessons seems to consist of learning by rote another few hundred set sentences and recitation of the works of the Bronte sisters. Convincing students they should talk with each other to improve is a real uphill struggle and if you're on a campus like mine - some 4,000 students learning some degree of English and only two native English speakers - the result is a bit like someone learning tennis who thinks the only way to improve their game is to only ever practice it when the coach is there to watch but they can only spend one hour a week with the coach. The rest of the week they don't even pick up the racket. The best speakers on this campus are those who talk to each other or, at a pinch, talk to walls to practice 'th', 'v' and their ilk until their tongues and lips slip into place naturally... but no matter how often I hold these students up to everyone else by way of proof the 'I will only entrench my errors if I speak English with another Chinese' obsession continues to operate. The same goes for grammar. What stops students from getting (to take the obvious example) 'he' and 'she' right isn't a lack of knowledge; it's purely down to a lack of practice. They all know the rule AS a rule and there's no point repeating it, but they're all so busy with the mental translation that comes with unfamiliarity of actual use that the rule inevitably slips.
So yes, pronunciation is poor here. The problem Chuck identified was an additional one; that when students DO attain a reasonable level of pronunciation and should be spending time on other matters on the basis of the law of diminishing returns they insist on soldiering on to the almost unattainable goal of trying to rid themselves of their accents altogether and sound PRECISELY like a station announcer on the BBC or VOA