Passionate About Pronunciation #1: Shadowing

Hello!

I have many students who ask me to help them sound more "English". But this is an interesting questions because England has many different accents. From Liverpool with the 'Scouser' accent, to Newcastle with the 'Geordie' accent. If you were to quickly Google these accents you will realise they are not your 'standard' English accent.

The standard English accent, received pronunciation (RP) or BBC English, is definitely one English accent and I think this is what my students are referring to when they ask me this question.

But, my opinion is that speakers of other languages who are learning English should be proud of their accented English. Yes, it is important to pronounce your words well so that you can be understood when you are speaking, but changing your accent is not always necessary.

In my lessons on pronunciation, I help you sound more "English" in a general sense. English is a fascinating language. It can be quite difficult to use the same rhythms that English uses and we like to leave out sounds or change the stress of our words to fit that rhythm. By learning the way that English is spoken, you can sound more natural when you speak English and, as a bonus, you can also improve your understanding of spoken English.

I will write some other episodes in this column about specific interesting facts about English pronunciation. I will also include a tip at the end of each column for you to try on your own.

Or you can take a look at the coupon below and try out a pronunciation lessons yourself.

TIP #1:
Shadowing - practise repeating short sentences in your level of English, or a level below, at the same time as a native speaker. I am learning Korean and practise shadowing as often as possible. I find a YouTube video with a transcript. I then choose a few short sentences from this video and practise saying the sentences again and again at the same time as the speaker in the video. Sometimes I have to slow it down. I do this until I can say it fluently with the speaker. Then I repeat this for all the sentences I have chosen.

Let me know if you try the tip. I hope to hear from you in the comments!

Teacher Gaby