Everyone has contributed here, and thanks for sharing. I will add something here:
The ideal is to build up one's sprachgefuhl (语感), the feel of the language. The learner can stick to one spoken English book with audio, listen and repeat after the instructor to correct oneself gradually, after going over the book several times you will feel the improvement in both your spoken and listening comprehension ability.
During the process you may fresh yourself on:
American English vowels/consonants (important for pronunciation correctly);
Word or Syllable stress (the word "import" has the first syllable stressed as noun, but has the second syllable stressed as a verb).
General rule for word stress: important words are stressed, like noun, verb, adjectives and adverbs are stressed. We don't usually stress pronouns, helping words, prepositons and small words like a, an, the.
When stressing a word or syllable, we say it with force and by changing the pitch, and by pronoucing the stressed vowel very clearly with force for a longer time.
Word stress in adjective plus noun combination (generally: noun is stressed);
Word stress in noun plus noun phrases (generally: the first noun is stressed.).
Syllables not to stress, which is very important in spoken English, they are given a name SCHWA, which is a vowel sound not front, not back, not high, not low, it's not anything in particular, just a newtral, unclear vowel. If you put more stress in SCHWA sound you may confuse the natives.
Attention needs to be given to:
Glottal stops; like the 't' in 'light' needs not be pronouced out (generally).
Voicing and vowel duration: "bad" would be pronounced longer than "bat" in following sentences (Native speakers say the vowel before the voiced consonant for a longer time);
He's a bat boy.
He's a bad boy.
Linking words together;
The last letter in abbreviationa and initialls are stressed;
Also, native speakers usually don’t pronounce the ‘h’in pronouns as his, her, him and helping words like have, has, had, they link the sound before ‘h, to' the sound after [h]
Those above are the important points for ESL learners to note, and with those in mind, practise more by imitating native speakers' pronounciatin, you will improve yours quickly.
Following free online material is very good as a start (JenifferESL):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxzieu-WXt4
Happy Studies.
The ideal is to build up one's sprachgefuhl (语感), the feel of the language. The learner can stick to one spoken English book with audio, listen and repeat after the instructor to correct oneself gradually, after going over the book several times you will feel the improvement in both your spoken and listening comprehension ability.
During the process you may fresh yourself on:
American English vowels/consonants (important for pronunciation correctly);
Word or Syllable stress (the word "import" has the first syllable stressed as noun, but has the second syllable stressed as a verb).
General rule for word stress: important words are stressed, like noun, verb, adjectives and adverbs are stressed. We don't usually stress pronouns, helping words, prepositons and small words like a, an, the.
When stressing a word or syllable, we say it with force and by changing the pitch, and by pronoucing the stressed vowel very clearly with force for a longer time.
Word stress in adjective plus noun combination (generally: noun is stressed);
Word stress in noun plus noun phrases (generally: the first noun is stressed.).
Syllables not to stress, which is very important in spoken English, they are given a name SCHWA, which is a vowel sound not front, not back, not high, not low, it's not anything in particular, just a newtral, unclear vowel. If you put more stress in SCHWA sound you may confuse the natives.
Attention needs to be given to:
Glottal stops; like the 't' in 'light' needs not be pronouced out (generally).
Voicing and vowel duration: "bad" would be pronounced longer than "bat" in following sentences (Native speakers say the vowel before the voiced consonant for a longer time);
He's a bat boy.
He's a bad boy.
Linking words together;
The last letter in abbreviationa and initialls are stressed;
Also, native speakers usually don’t pronounce the ‘h’in pronouns as his, her, him and helping words like have, has, had, they link the sound before ‘h, to' the sound after [h]
Those above are the important points for ESL learners to note, and with those in mind, practise more by imitating native speakers' pronounciatin, you will improve yours quickly.
Following free online material is very good as a start (JenifferESL):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxzieu-WXt4
Happy Studies.
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
