Improving Pronunciation

  English Pronunciation Errors in Spanish Speakers  One of the biggest challenges for Spanish speakers when learning English is pronunciation. English pronunciation can be quite tricky, even for native speakers. From confusing vowel sounds to mispronouncing certain consonants, there are plenty of common errors that many English learners fall into. In this blog post, we will explore some of these frequent pronunciation mistakes and provide helpful tips to improve the spoken English. In Spanish there’s a tendency to pronounce things the way that they’re written. There are also some big differences between English and Spanish phonetics. Improving your pronunciation is not about sounding native, it’s about making yourself understood. Firstly, it is important to know the technique called Error Analysis and it’s background history. Error Analysis is used to spot, categorize and explain all the errors made by students who are learning English as a second or foreign language. It fir...

It is when Spanish speakers pronounce SH / ʃ / as S /s/, which happens when they don't draw their tongue back. And also it can be mispronounced as CH / ʧ / sound is present in Spanish.  Example:  "she" becomes "see" (sh - s)           "she" becomes "che" (sh - ch) Exercise #1 Instructions:  1.   Start by hissing out the S sound (“ssssssss”). 2.   Then round your lips closer together and pull your tongue back to produce the SH sound. 3.   Now read the following sentences pronouncing words with the SH /ʃ/ sound as you have practiced in the previous two steps.   Exercise #2 Instructions:  1. First pronounce the sound SH /ʃ/ like the quite sound “shhhh” and the CH /ʧ/ sound like a sneeze “Ah-choo!”. 2. Now pronounce the following words as you have practiced in the previous step to see the difference between those two sounds.   References   English Pronunciation Lesson:  /s/  vs. /ʃ/ (s v...

It refers to when Spanish speakers tend to stretch out the vowel sound too much to overcompensate, or merge it with the closest sound in Spanish. It happens because there are around twenty distinct vowel sounds in English, whereas in Spanish there are only five.  Example:  Mispronunciation of the vowel sound 'ɪ' (as in ship) because it is replaced with 'i:' (as in sheep).  Exercise #1: Instructions: The following table lists short and long vowel sounds of English. Practice the pronunciation of these minimal pairs to see the difference between the vowel sounds of these words.  Exercise #2: Instructions: 1.  Click on the links below.  2. Listen to the audios.  3. Then select the option you heard of the short and long vowel sounds.   Minimal pairs /æ/ /Λ/ Minimal pairs /æ/ /ɑː/ Minimal pairs /ɪ/ /iː/ Minimal pairs /ɒ/ /ɔː/ Minimal pairs /ɒ/ /əʊ/ Minimal pairs /əʊ/ /aʊ/ Minimal pairs /əʊ/ /ɔː/ Minimal pairs /ɪ/ /iː/ References Oxford House. (20...

  It happens when the /b/ and /v/ sounds sound the same when Spanish speakers pronounce words with those sounds.  In English, the /v/ is fricative, which means the teeth and lips must touch when you say it. The /b/ on the other hand, is plosive. This means both the lips touch together (imagine the motion you’d do when applying lipstick or blowing a kiss). Example:  Mispronunciation of these sounds can cause some confusion. “Have you seen the Voice?” sounds like “Have you seen the boys?” "very" sounds like "berry" "van" sounds like "ban" "vase" sounds like "bars" Exercise #1: Instructions: Practise saying both sets of words and check your pronunciation is different for each. Make sure that for the /v/ sound air passes between your teeth and lips with a vibration. Exercise #2:  Instructions: Look carefully every picture and repeat the words. Reference Oxford House. (2020, November 11). 6 Pronunciation Mistakes Spanish Speakers M...

  As Spanish speakers, in our alphabet we only have one sound for each of the five vowels. In contrast to English that are several sounds even just for one vowel. This brings us to this first error in which we cannot identify easily these two sounds because of their similarity. Example:  bit - beat          chip - cheap          dip - deep               fill - feel Exercise #1 Instructions:  In couples, you will have a chart with different audios of minimal pair words. You have to choose if the word contains either [i] or [ɪ] sound. To help you to choose the correct option, pronounce the word aloud mimicking what you heard in the audio. https://voca.ro/15Tt4vn7L3Jw https://voca.ro/1dkJGksFZDpm https://voca.ro/1hP2lAOrD1Zd https://voca.ro/11I7drbv830j https://voca.ro/1mLAPtAF2sCO https://voca.ro/18GtSufxpas7 https://voca.ro/1hhhlaYaBeYS https://voca.ro/19VcTxstjnmi https://voca.ro/1oH...

 OUR REFLEXIONS  In my opinión is very important to recognize this types of errors ,from confusing vowel sounds to mispronouncing certain consonants, there are plenty of common errors that many English learners fall into. Its important to know that Improving our pronunciation is not about sounding native, it’s about making ourselves understood. The word ‘bien’ sounds more like ‘vine’, and ‘bote’ sounds like ‘vote’. So its important to know the context and meaning to not get confused.  I enjoy this activity because now I know many errors that I ignore and I would try to work in the ones I have and I’ll try to teach in the best way to my students one day! Angie Barahona  As a Spanish speaker I think it is more difficult to find errors, and we have to be more careful because many sounds of English do not exist in Spanish, and because of that we think that many errors are correct, and as a student, in this practice I realized that it is necessary to be focused and have ...