Pronunciation diary #2

Hey guys,

It is time to talk about pronunciation again. Yay, who does not like pronunciation? ;) This is the second part of my pronunciation diary.

I want to share with you my method that I used while studying for my oral exam on Thursday. The oral exam is over!!! :D I felt such a relief after I was done with it. It was not bad at all. I was afraid of it, but it turned out good. :) Besides learning the Porter words, I also had to work on my pronunciation.

In my last feedback Frank told me that my biggest problems are that I speak too fast and the “th” sound. I needed to work on those two things before the exam. I know that I speak too fast and it is really a problem because sometimes my own mother cannot understand me. Most people just speak really quickly in their mother tongue, but I speak like that in every foreign language I am fluent in. Now, I try to speak slowly and enunciate my words, but sometimes I forget, and slip back into my old talking speed. I worked on that with my roommate. I would get a text and read it out loud, if she could follow, then the speed was good, if she could not, then I had to do it again, but more slowly this time. We went through many texts. In the end it was worth it. I think that I am now able to speak in appropriate speed when I am talking in class or reading a text out loud. However, I think that I will still read/talk fast when I am not in class. Sorry, I cannot really help it. Blessing or curse? :S

Furthermore, I had to work on the “th” sound. It is not really that I do not know how to pronounce it, but sometimes I am lazy when I read/speak and I just mispronounce it. Since Youtube is a great source for basically everything I looked up how to correctly pronounce words that contain “th” and came across this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5LO0hHGfQg I recommend watching it. It is not long and it really helps. Side-effect, you might spit around while trying to imitate the guy but that is ok ;) After some time spent spitting around, I found this pronunciation practice sheet http://www.vitaeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/th-sound-Handout.pdf

Again, my roommate and I decided to do it together. Honestly, we looked like nutcases ready to be hospitalized while yelling out words containing “th”. We even made up our own language:

A: Three! (Hi!)

B: Three! Thirteen? (Hi! How are you doing?)

A: Thousand! There? (Great! You?)

B: Bathroom :( (Not good.)

As you can see we had a lot of fun practicing our pronunciation. As I said in my other blog post I wrote about pronunciation, practicing it can be really fun. It all comes down to your attitude. If you go in and start learning it while thinking “I hate this crap, let's just get it over with” you will hate it. However, if you have a positive attitude things will be much easier.

XOXO A.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”  Mahatma Gandhi