Search results for 'tag:Pronunciation tag:Teaching English' matching tags 'Pronunciation' and 'Teaching English'

Re: Do AMericans pronounce " forty" as fordi or forti?

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:18:56 GMT

When it comes to "t" and "d", Belly, regional variation in pronunciation is the rule rather than the exception. What everyone has replied is correct, even if it may seem contradictory. In teaching English as a second language, I try to take the "path of least resistance." Whatever the learner can use and still be understood is my "rule of thumb."

Cheers,
Steve

Re: What makes English so difficult to learn?

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:34:01 GMT

Hello, another English teacher here. I have been teaching English in China for about 2 and a half years now and also speak fluent French, decent Spanish and am learning Chinese (not as hard as you may think once you get the hang of those tones, easy grammar). Now I'll start off by saying that English seems to be an incredibly easy language to communicate with (and by this I mean to give the general idea of what you're trying to say). However, if you want to learn English like a native speaker then it's a completely different story. The pronunciation CAN be difficult to learn depending on your native language and also the age you attempt to learn it at. Training your tongue and mouth to move the same way a native speaker does can be difficult to do, especially if you're like many of my students who got their start at an older age or didn't have good teachers. I've also noticed that my younger students are able to mimic my speech much easier than the older ones speaking, both of whom are studying at the same level. I started learning French when I was 4 years old (Quebec French, I'm Canadian) and because of the quality of my teachers and my young age I was able to become quite good with my pronunciation. With my Chinese because I'm learning from scratch from native speakers my pronunciation is also decent (notice I said decent, not great, although when speaking Chinese I'm always understood). Native language has a lot to do with it too as the sounds you use in one language may be very different for another. I've taught in both the north and south of China and find that the people all have the same problems. Chinese people have problems with s (they often pronounce it as a sh sound) and with closing their mouth for the letter m ("sometimes" is a nightmare for them and they often say it like "suntine"). L and R can also be troublesome. One can't forget sentence stress as well as well as linking words together to make it go smoothly.

The vocabulary can also be a pain. Someone here mentioned 150,000 words in the English language but the number is actually much higher. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) contains over 600,000 definitions. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged contains 475,000 main headwords and it is believed the language grows by 25,000 words a year. Don't believe me, check Wikipedia. There's also the difference in spelling and vocabulary between the different forms of English. British English and American English use different words and the words that are the same can be spelled differently. American English and Canadian English essentially share the same vocabulary to a large degree but the spelling of Canadian English in many ways is closer to British English. British English is pretty much the English form most Asian and European countries will learn but American pop culture will also have an influence, not to mention the American economy and it's impact. This can all be very confusing. To the person saying they are tired of using "well" as in "well, then..." there are many substitutes you could use.

The grammar is also a nuisance. It's not the hardest of things but certainly isn't the easiest. Sure French has a gender attached to all of it's nouns (which I hated when learning it), but English still has more exceptions to it's rules that need to me memorized. So many even native speakers have trouble with it. A language like Chinese that may seem hard to speak actually has very simple grammar. For example if you wanted to ask someone where they are you would say "ni zai na li" or simply "ni zai nar" (you where?). To ask a question in Chinese you merely ad "ma" to the end of a statement. "Ta hui shuo zhongwen" is "he/she speaks Chinese whereas "ta hui shuo zhongwen ma" is "does he/she speak Chinese?". Also in Chinese as there are no forms of he or she.

It's impossible to say which language is easy and which is hard when compared to each other because there are so many things that need to be taken into consideration. Let's just say that English has it's easy parts and it's ridiculously difficult parts as well. Speaking at a native speaker level can be done and I know people who have done this, but it takes a lot of hard work, good instruction, and a good learning atmosphere. I hope all that made sense, I stumbled onto this site a 2 in the morning and am quite tired.

Re: Which films and songs for learning english?

Samoht — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:55:36 GMT

Hello Old Man Gordon,

thank you for communicate your impressions. I can follow your way teaching english.
But unfortunately I donÂ´t like old music like Beatles and so on. Watching old movies is a method I will try.

Yesterday I switched through CAST AWAY with Tom Hanks and it worked. Clear pronunciation and enunciation.
Moreover Tom Hanks is most alone on his island!!!

Good evening

Thomas

Elvis' Music

Old Man Gordon — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 10:55:49 GMT

Elvis is one of the most popular and famous American Rock stars. Which of his songs would be best for learning/teaching English, and why?

For example. 'Hound Dog' is good for teaching double negatives, which are completely wrong, yet are still commonly used.

One problem with some of his songs is that his pronunciation is often slurred, so it makes things difficult for a non-native.

Re: Learning and teaching English in Vietnam

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:17:26 GMT

Guest wrote:
i totally agree with ambitious on the idea that the Vietnamese are very nice people.
I also agree with that America-born Vietnamese about the Pronunciation problem. must be focused on pronunciation more.

hello

Re: Learning and teaching English in Vietnam

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 15:38:46 GMT

i think the vietnamese word is not very difficult to study well. if we know the alphabet that we can pronunsiation it

you know i have beeen there 10 years ago .but can speak vietnamese too ,i'm learning of vietnamese word about 5 years

i think that language is not difficult well

i mean just to know about those alphabet then and we can pronunciation it

thank you

cam on

Re: Learning and teaching English in Vietnam

Son_tiny — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:37:33 GMT

Yeah you are absolutely right Nga_VN 87. I can realize one important point is our pronunciation is very bad. We couldnot make some foreigners understand the basic English words even we know English vocabularies very well but we have never ever had a conversation with foreigners so we are real losers. Actually it is quite hard for anyone who wanna learn another language without listening and speaking just focus on grammar is not enough to pick a new language in your brain. It happened for me as well.I found it difficult when I communicated to my friend when I put my foot in abroad. But time helped me to find out what I had to do to improve my poor English. There is no way except u have to practice to anyone even sometimes they dont understand u. But keep on talking will remind us to learn English. The thing what i am trying to say here is never shy to make conversation with anyone by english. We are just English learner so we can make mistake somewhere cuz we are not expert, not E native Speakers so we can allow to speak wrong sometimes. Nice to talk Vietnamese who hook on English and really wanna study the language. I am so glad if someone contact to me by writing E so we can exchange the language together. I am not good in English but I am very enthusiastic and try to make conversation with all of u. My YIM is sonsiza@yahoo.com. If someone wanna chat I am very pleased to sit here and talk whatever u want. I just hope our English will be improved so fast after we make conversation together.

Re: ANYBODY WHO WANTS TO LEARN OR STUDY MEDICAL ENGLISH?

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 03:27:09 GMT

Perhaps you could start with: Jabbour-Lagocki, Judith (1992). Medical terminology: A phonological analysis for teaching English pronunciation. ESP, 11(1), 71-79.

I'm working on my thesis, too: Colloquial medical language for NNES health care personnel.

Best of luck.

Kim

Re: Phonetic Transcription

myprofe — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 22:12:18 GMT

Please accept my apologies. It was not my intention to be rude but rather realistic. I've been teaching English as a foreign language for over 25 years. It's much more important to speak correctly than to have good pronunciation. Your post has mistakes and I'm the only one who took the time to correct them.

Re: English teaching sites

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:40:08 GMT

I would like to suggest a web site: www.ezgi.com is a free site teaching english grammar & vocabulary online for Turkish speaking people. The site has also online pronunciation robot at http://listen.ezgi.com where users can write and listen.