Pronunciation Guide #1

"It is simply impossible to sound like a native speaker in a foreign language."
"Oh no, please keep your German accent, it sounds lovely!"

These sentences and suchlike often discourage and keep English-learners from practicing and improving their pronunciation. I, however, tell everyone who approaches me with such statements to be quite. Why? Firstly, a native-like accent is perfectly attainable (although it needs great effort) and secondly, I want to clearly focus on my pronunciation skills and how to improve them -- and discouraging statements keep me from doing so.

I decided to try to achieve an American accent, as for me imitating Americans seems more natural and easier, which is possibly due to the fact that I almost exclusively expose myself to American pronunciation. How? By watching as many American movies, TV shows and YouTube videos as possible (I recommend watching the billions of videos by the Vlogbrothers -- they are hilarious and you'll simultaneously train your listening skills as they tend to talk inhumanly fast).

Since we were assigned to record ourselves reading several texts in class, I now know which fields of my pronunciation I need to improve. As it seems and although I was never aware of it, I have difficulties distinguishing between the voiced and unvoiced "th".

To overcome this little weakness, I used the help of this tricky tongue-twister.

The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday.

Here you can see the phonetical transcription of the sentence:

With the assistance of Rachel's English, I figured out how to 100 per cent correctly pronounce the voiced and unvoiced "th". Then I practiced the tongue-twister until I was utterly confident about the difference between the two sounds.

Do you notice the peculiar symbols above every "th" in my transcription? Well, these symbols are named phonetic symbols. In English, 43 of them exist and together they form the English phonetic alphabet.

The phonetic alphabet is a clever means to commit a word's pronunciation to paper. It facilitates English-learners to find out the correct pronunciation without actually listening to the pronunciation but by simply looking at the phonetic transcription.

In order to enjoy the advantage the phonetic alphabet offers, I printed out the table on the left and hung it on my pinboard above my desk.



I guess that the way I faced my pronunciation weakness works with almost every English sound. So be aware of the mistakes you make and try to overcome your weakness as well. I hope you find my method useful. Look forward to "Pronunciation Guide #2"!