Fix Your English Pronunciation Mistakes in 30 Minutes

right Eiland good day hi everybody my

name is Alisha welcome back to our

weekly live stream this week we are

going to talk about English

pronunciation tips English pronunciation

tips so as you join please don’t forget

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you can get free PDF lessons from the

link below the video on youtube or above

the video on Facebook we’re going to

wait a couple of minutes so other people

can join and then we’re going to begin

today’s lesson I’m going to cover three

kind of big topics I’m gonna talk about

voiced and unvoiced sounds and how to

understand the difference I’m going to

talk about vowel sounds with lots of

examples and then I’m going to talk

about something called minimal pairs

minimal pairs so today’s lesson will be

focused on pronunciation and the

pronunciation will be American English

pronunciation this is American English

pronunciation not British English so

British English will have some different

pronunciations especially vowel

pronunciations so we’re going to start

in just a moment I think we are waiting

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everybody ready now so again

today’s topic is English pronunciation

tips we really appreciate it if you like

and share the video so other people can

find it I am going to share the video

and then I am going to start the lesson

okay so let’s get started today I’m

going to begin by explaining the

difference between voiced and unvoiced

sounds voiced and unvoiced sounds what

are these things so let’s get started

voiced and unvoiced sounds are the two

sounds the two types of sound that we

can create so how do we know if a sound

is voiced or unvoiced this is a tip that

you can use when you practice your

pronunciation so when you make a sound

touch your throat as you make the sound

so for example like ah is a sound if you

touch your throat and you feel vibration

so vibration is like the movement your

vocal chords the parts of your body

inside your throat move to make the

sound if you touch your throat and you

feel that vibration that’s a voiced

sound a voiced sound we call it a voiced

sound so like ah is a voiced sound and

II those are voiced sounds if however

you make the sound and there is no

vibration for example like an H sound or

like an F sound there’s no vibration

there that’s an unvoiced sound and

unvoiced sound so these are the two

sounds or the two types voiced and

unvoiced sounds

this is how you can decide is this a

voiced sound I’m making or is this an

unvoiced sound I’m making so when you’re

practicing your pronunciation at home if

you’re not sure you can use this to

check voiced or unvoiced so I want to

use this to begin today’s lesson by

practicing a sound that is difficult for

many learners the th sound the th sound

th there is actually there are two ways

to make a th sound th is a little bit

special

it has a poised and an unvoiced version

so voiced th sounds so that means we use

our vocal chords to make the sound our

words like these this those although

neither other so these th’s are voiced

th –is this so when you make this sound

you should put your tongue between your

teeth a little bit think this that

that’s true for both of these so put

your tongue between your teeth to make

the th sound be careful not s sound many

learners say like for example this so

maybe a Z sound or sync instead of think

something like that actually that’s an

unvoiced I talked about it in a minute

but make sure that you’re not making a Z

sound or an S sound with this so to do

that put your tongue between your teeth

to practice and make a sound or the

sound this is a voiced th so these words

are kind of what we think of as

structure words so we use these words to

help us make the grammar of this

sentence so these words are like

connecting words for example or they’re

like kind of helping words in many cases

these words don’t tell us a lot of

information about the content so in most

cases usually these kinds of th are

voiced th

sounds voiced th sound so again this

those although and you can touch your

throat again to see if you’re making a

voiced sound or an unvoiced sound

neither other let’s compare this then to

unvoiced th sounds unvoiced th sounds so

an unvoiced th sound we do not use our

vocal cords to make this sound it’s

words like think bath theater everything

so here I’m not using my vocal cords I’m

making like an air sound only it’s hard

to hear can you hear that

so think bath again make sure this

especially the unvoiced th sound this

should not be an s so not sink so when I

make the S sound sink my teeth are

together sink that’s not correct put

your tongue between your teeth or when

you get more comfortable knit like

native speakers do we quickly touch our

tongue to the back of our teeth to make

this sound think so think bath again

bath not bath where my teeth are

together but bath so focus on that

position for your mouth think bath

theater so no vocal cord use here

theater theater just air to make this th

sound so it’s very quick very short

these are unvoiced th sounds you’ll

notice these words are like content

words so with these words we understand

like the action as in think or it’s a

noun bath or theater so these words are

giving us information key information

about the sentence these are unvoiced th

sounds voiced th sounds are our

structure words so they’re helping us to

make the sentence unvoiced words are

giving us the information about the

sentence so these are our first sounds I

will come back to this at the end of

today’s lesson a little bit to review so

this is how I want to begin today’s

lesson

think of this voiced and unvoiced tip

especially for consonant sounds a

reminder consonant sounds are the words

or sorry the letters consonant consonant

sounds are the letters other of an AE I

owe you why those sorts of those sorts

of letters so those this is important

for your consonant sounds when you’re

making consonant sounds yes it is really

live okay let’s get started

oh sorry let’s go to a break then let’s

go to a quick break so today as always

we have free stuff but I know today is a

pronunciation lesson so I think if you

want to focus on your pronunciation it’s

maybe a good idea to begin with words

that are important to you so you can

practice with the words that you are

actually going to use so you can choose

if you check the link below the video on

youtube or above the video on Facebook

there are lots of free pdf so we’re

gonna go up here right now okay so there

are lots of free PDF that you can

download this one’s about like romance

and relationships

this one’s about food my personal

favorite maybe so there are lots of

vocabulary words here and phrases for

going to like a restaurant in this case

or for food and so on so I would suggest

if there’s something if there’s a topic

that you are interested in like pets or

animals and so on choose one of these

are a few of these and use these to

practice your pronunciation so this is

about your pets for example types of

pets that’s a good pronunciation Siamese

cat Siamese cat that esta so choose a

couple of these to work on your

pronunciation choose something that you

use in your daily life or that you know

you are going to use more in the future

so I think this would be good for your

pronunciation using the words you’re

actually going to use

for your studies so you can find that

from the link below the video on YouTube

or above the video on Facebook if you’re

watching on Instagram

please check instant radiance TV tube or

Facebook if you’re watching on Instagram

okay so yes we do we have a second

camera that sometimes sometimes is in

our live stream okay good and if you

have any questions please send them in

the live stream chat throughout the

lesson as well I will try to check all

right let’s carry on so if you’re just

joining today’s topic is English

pronunciation tips English pronunciation

tips so I’m going to continue to the

second part bowels but please don’t

forget to like and share the video if

you haven’t already we really

appreciated okay let’s go along to parts

two part two I’ll stand here for now

part two I want to focus on vowels for

part two vowels so vowels are the other

group of letters I talked about

consonants briefly with voiced and

unvoiced sounds consonants are the

letters other than vowels vowels are the

AE I owe you and a schwa which I’ll talk

about so here I have a list of example

words that use the different sounds for

each vowel so let’s go through one by

one and listen to how we make these

sounds and think about how to make these

sounds more clearly let’s begin with a a

so there are many a sounds I want to

talk about in this lesson

first let’s look at this word mad mad

mad this a this is a short a sound mad

so we make the short a sound when a

comes before a consonant like at the end

of a word and it’s not followed by E so

mad or dad or bad that ass

that’s the short a sound compare this to

this a sound date date this a sound this

is the long a sound date so we make this

long a sound when we have a consonant

and an e at the after the consonant so

date or mate or late this is one of the

rules for making the long a sound

another a sound we have is this one in

autumn autumn autumn has this sort of ah

sound ah it’s not quite an O sound it’s

like aw almost ah ah so autumn autumn a

common spelling for this sound is au au

autumn autumn so those are three

different sounds so mad date autumn

ah eh oh those three two points up for

those of you I know many of you struggle

with the R sound the R sound so let’s

focus on a to R so if going starting

from an a sound going to an R sound like

art art our earth art so this a sound

goes slowly art to an R sound and when

you make the R sound your tongue should

not touch anything in your mouth art art

your tongue is just like relaxed kind of

in your mouth art so art and a different

a to our sound isn’t a word like chair

chair it’s out here it’s just like air

air so chair chair so these are five

different a sounds to think about here

mad date autumn art chair okay let’s

move on then to Esau n–’s and compare

the differences between these so the

first isse ound is net net net this is a

short e and that’s the short e sound is

Mette ii ii sound this is the long e

sound heat heat heat so this is one

spelling heat EA but be careful not all

words spelled with EA are pronounced

with a long e sound for example bear b

EA are that’s pronounced bear bear so

heat is pronounced differently so be

careful there are some exceptions to

this but sometimes the EA spelling is

pronounced with this long e heat heat

finally again another vowel to R sound

cheer cheer so G so ear ear you can

imagine this is like this part of your

body the ear ear so we’re moving to that

are sound again when you make this our

ear your tongue is just it’s like at

this angle inside your mouth so there’s

it’s hard to be it’s like this in your

mouth so there’s nothing like touching

your tongue when you make the R sound

earth earth your tongue is kind of back

in the mouth a little bit too so cheer

chair cheer chair any sound with that in

mind let’s continue on to I as well I I

sounds again short I sound lip lip e so

this is the short I lip again you’ll see

here with these short sounds the vowel

comes before a consonant at the end of a

word mad net lip these short sounds are

just before a consonant at the end of a

word the long I sound lie lie lie is

here lie so you’ll see this with like a

vowel sound at the end of a word for

example like pile as well so there’s an

e at the end of the word sometimes with

a consonant here too as in my example

pile - okay

others okay I’m checking your your

questions and comments in the chat this

is an interesting I sound

it’s foil foil I’ve put this in the I

sound it’s like it’s like an O and I

together

oil oil this is what’s called a

diphthong so a diphthong is when we move

from one sound to another sound in the

same syllable foil foil that’s called a

diphthong so foil foil you may hear this

with words spelled with o il like oil or

oil as well to foil someone says how do

you say though though like that though

yeah some people lots of people have

trouble with world world it’s that RL

transition where we’ll break that down

into three parts were Oh duh and try

practicing those individually to begin

with and then try to connect those okay

let’s go on to oh there’s a lot to talk

about here Oh first is the short o sound

box box so again before a consonant at

the end for a consonant at the end so

box ah ah that’s the short o sound box

second is the long o sound mode mode so

again we see Oh in this case o comes

before a consonant followed by e at the

end of a word mode mode so O is the long

o sound o is the short o sound ah oh

let’s look now at this one though this

is sound sound so sound this is similar

to this a you sound I talked about

autumn autumn it’s like an O sound like

a w almost this is similar ow ow the

spelling here is sound s oh um D so

there’s an O you spelling but please be

careful

this is different

from words like should or could or would

should could this is different from

these words but sometimes you will hear

this oh you pronounced as an owl sound

in these cases it’s pronounced as an ood

sound should would so please be careful

the spelling the spelling rules and

pronunciation are quite tricky and I’ll

talk more about this in the future

finally this sound here for for this is

another example of a different sound

with this oh you spelling sound for

sound for those are totally different

sounds right but the spelling is similar

so try to remember it’s it takes some

practice of course and reading and

listening practice but remembering these

words that have kind of these different

spelling and pronunciation rules will

help you to become a more affluent and

natural the speaker I think ok with that

then let’s move on to the last vowel and

then are kind of tricky vowel to let’s

go to you you so you are short you sound

is here cut cut uh-uh

that’s our short u sound long u sound

here not even a u this is an E n e W you

knew that’s a long u sound but the

spelling does not use a u so this is a

great example you’ll also hear it in a

word like you you that’s a long you

sound

so there are different spellings short

you a long you ooh

nu nu let’s look at this one though this

one many of you have asked about this

the double O sound this is a very tricky

sound tricky means difficult this is a

tricky sound because there are many

pronunciations for this spell

so here good good not good but good good

this is the pronunciation let’s compare

this to these two words flood and blood

so same spelling oooo

different pronunciation compare good

good with flood blood good so and I hear

different pronunciations continuing this

group then boot Bo ot boot moon spoon

again different so here we got good and

here we have uh and here we have ooh

there are three different pronunciations

here finally floor floor floor so there

are four here I’ve I’ve introduced four

different pronunciations for this

spelling the oo spelling is tough I know

and it’s one that with practice and with

time you’ll start to remember the most

common the common words that use these

different pronunciations so I chose a

few today but there are more so this is

an important spelling to be careful of

in your reading and in your listening to

okay finally I do want to mention the

word cure cure here cure cure this is an

interesting used out that cure cute cute

it sounds like the letter Q Q but we

pronounce it in this word as cure cure

so please be careful of this you sound

as well so this is a very quick

introduction to all the sounds we make

or most of them with vowels please keep

in mind that there are many different

ways to pronounce these vowel sounds or

rather many different spellings for

pronouncing these vowel sounds let’s end

this part with this one what’s called

the schwa the schwa I didn’t include it

in this part because the schwa is sort

of like in the middle of all of these

verbs the schwa is a special

bowel sound because we use it in

unstressed syllables unstressed

syllables so what does that mean

in English we have stress we have this

rhythm to our speech for example the

word beautiful that has three syllables

three beats in the word beautiful yeah

so beaut too full but when we say it we

have stress so that means one part is

stronger than the other parts beautiful

this is how native speakers say this

word beautiful so beautiful s tip has no

stress

ful has a little bit of stress so there

are three different levels of stress in

English that give it kind of this rhythm

so beautiful

has this schwa sound unstressed

syllables no stress on the word take

this schwa pronunciation here too -

that’s the schwa sound it it that’s what

it sounds like beautiful so because this

doesn’t follow a spelling rule it

follows a stress rule we see it in many

words for example here in this word

separate separate so we don’t say

separate in everyday speech this a right

here becomes a schwa separate separate

separate so it’s a very quick short

sound yeah that’s the schwa it’s not

like any other vowel another example

this a in again again got sound again

that’s a schwa one more this e in camera

Kim or we don’t say the e sound in

camera in fast speech we say camera

camera

it’s that again this is called the schwa

the rule is to use it for unstressed

syllables so listen to the stress how

much emphasis is being put on the

and you can find out where the schwa

go okay we’ll take I guess one more

soup or a quick break and then we’ll go

to the very last short part of today’s

lesson okay so I mentioned earlier that

we have free stuff as always for you

from the link below the video on YouTube

above the video on Facebook I showed on

the other camera a couple of these

already I mentioned for today’s lesson

which is about pronunciation I was

thinking it’s a good idea to practice

your pronunciation with words you are

going to use so I showed like food and

pet related PDFs vocabulary and phrase

cheat sheets these are PDFs you can

download I’ll show a couple more for

travellers especially maybe business

travelers or I guess for fun hotel

related words so this is hotel

vocabulary and on the back our sentences

that you can use in a hotel so some of

the pronunciation points we are talking

about today are included here another

example is shopping shopping so if you

like shopping and you want to practice

shopping words in English please check

out this PDF so there are lots of

vocabulary words and phrases that you

can use and I think it’s a good way to

practice your pronunciation using the

words that are important to you so

please check these out check these out

my over here please check these out you

can find these from below the video on

youtube or above the video on Facebook

okay let’s move along to the last part

of today’s lesson then the last part of

today’s lesson I’m going to focus on

some very common points of difficulty

for learners and a few ideas for how you

can fix those so let’s take a look I

want to look at what are called minimal

pairs

pairs after this lesson if you want to

know more

search for minimal pairs in English a

minimal pair is a pair of words two

words they have the same maybe spelling

or the same sound except for just one

sound just one sound is different this

is called a minimal pair a minimal pair

so some common difficult what should I

say these are some minimal pairs that

many learners have trouble with let’s

begin with this group L and our minimal

pairs L and our I have three examples

first pair is glass and grass glass and

grass so here the difference is this L

sound and the R sound glass and grass

the second one fly and fry fly and

thrive again L sound and R sound are

different here finally rice and lice

rice and lice lice is like izi is a bug

that you find in your hair if you don’t

shower enough of this bad lice

so again R and L sounds so these are

difficult because many students have

trouble making the L sound and the R

sound differently like they sound the

same so a tip to help you make these

sounds more clearly is to focus on your

L sound so I talked earlier the R sound

your R sound your tongue should not

touch anything inside your mouth so when

you make the R sound your tongue is like

just inside your mouth in the center of

your mouth just not touching anything

however the L sound when you make the L

sound your tongue should touch the top

of your mouth so you can exaggerate it

and then when you make the sound release

your tongue look glass or fly or

sorry lice lice so practice making the L

sound very clearly your tongue has to

touch the top of your mouth and then

release it outward look left practice

making that sound so we can clearly hear

a difference between your L sound and

your R sound this is one tip that I hope

can help lots of people from lots of

countries I know many different

languages have different kinds of

struggles but this is one that many

people I think have trouble with so

please try that to improve your elf

pronunciation I know it feels strange at

first but it’s correct like my students

often giggle when I would tell them like

make this sound the th sound put your

tongue between your teeth they do it and

it’s perfect but they laugh because they

feel uncomfortable but it’s correct it’s

correct so don’t feel embarrassed don’t

feel embarrassed it’s the correct sound

so this is a tip for L and R sounds as I

mentioned this s and th minimal pair is

another one that’s difficult for many

students

so let’s look bus bus

bath bath so this isn’t a true minimal

pair there are two sounds that are

different but bus here we have a vowel

sound change bus and bath so vowel sound

changes yes so actually there are two

sounds different here but the S sound

bus is different from the bath sound

this is an unvoiced th sound we talked

about this at the beginning of the

lesson bath bath bus bath so make sure

your s sound is different from your th

sound as I said at the beginning of the

lesson your s sound your teeth should be

together bus to make the bath sound your

tongue should be between your teeth bus

bath bus bath finally sink and think so

many of my students have trouble with

this or had trouble with this the s and

th here

sink your teeth are together to make the

S sound a sink is a place where you wash

your hands ya think

sorry think is the verb I think I think

so students share their opinion I think

your tongue needs to be between your

teeth think think to say this correctly

sink teeth together think tongue between

your teeth so practice these two finally

last point for today sorry I’m late

• mine for today is vowel minimal pairs

and similar not a perfect minimal pair

here but these two I hear a lot and I’ve

seen in your comments as well questions

about these words so the first one is

kind of hard to see the first pair here

is woman and women woman woman WOM aan

and women woman women

spelling is very similar but we actually

changed this o sound and the ending

vowel sound whoa men with men whoop men

women so what woman singular women is

the plural so be careful of this vowel

sound

similarly with man and men man and men

so your vowel sound changes here man men

and lastly someone asked in the chat I

just saw it was about this one this pair

so many students have trouble with this

one you are not alone it is work work

versus walk work and walk walk in

American English they have very

different pronunciations in British

English perhaps they are more similar

but in American English work there’s a

clear R sound and this o is pronounced

her work

walk21 to walk your vowel sound is very

different wah-wah it’s at all a like wah

sound and we don’t really pronounce this

l walk we don’t say what we say walk

walk so focus on your vowel sound here

work walk quite different someone said

can I say Fink instead of think we do

not use the Fink pronunciation in

American English you might hear that in

British English and Australian English

but no American English speakers do not

use the fake pronunciation the

fingerprint unsee ation so I would say

no I would say no unless you’re studying

in British English so these are some

practice points and today I talked about

a few examples and ways to hopefully

improve your pronunciation ok I have to

finish I’m six minutes late sorry

let’s finish there thanks for joining us

this week and we’ll be back next week

next week I’m going to talk about how to

make English sentences this was a viewer

request actually I’m going to talk about

word order word order so please join us

next week April 10th at 10 p.m. Eastern

Standard Time that is New York City time

please join us for how to make English

sentences don’t forget to get your free

stuff that I talked about from the link

below the video on youtube or above the

video on Facebook it is free so please

practice your pronunciation with those

words you are going to use good luck

with that if you have questions comments

whatever send them in the chat I will

check it out and we’ll finish there for

today so thank you everybody thank you

for liking and sharing the video I

really appreciate it I hope you enjoy

your day enjoy your night have a nice

weekend and I will see you again next

time