As you might have realized from my previous blogpost,
I love all the different American accents and therefore I am aiming for sounding
American as well when I speak English.
Now, when trying to improve the pronunciation of words
there are different approaches you can take. In my opinion it is essential to
listen and talk to native English speakers because only that way you can really
observe how they talk and pronounce words.
If you quickly need to know how a certain word is
pronounced, online monolingual dictionaries are very helpful. You simply type
in the word you are looking for and then there is usually a button that you can
click on to hear the correct pronunciation. Some dictionaries even provide British
AND American pronunciation.
In my opinion the most helpful, besides talking to
natives, is to watch videos online that focus on English pronunciation. YouTube
offers hundreds of videos that help you improving pronunciation. I already put
one video about differences between British and American pronunciation in my
previous blogpost.
Many native German speakers have trouble pronouncing v
and w correctly in English as well as trouble distinguishing between b and p. For
some words this is also the case for me. To practice the pronunciation of
these letter, tongue twisters really help. Here are some examples that you can practice with:
Very
well, very well, very well ...
Wilma virtually wishes every weekend for very wild weather.
Peter batted better than Pat poured butter, so Peter told Pat he batted poorly and better pour the butter better before he batted.
In order to improve my American English pronunciation I
like to watch videos by Amy Walker. She is really natural and her videos are
not only entertaining but also very helpful in acquiring an American accent.
She covers all important aspects of Standard American English; from the different
vowel sounds to the melody and rhythm of American English.
She suggests that you use a mirror to watch yourself
when you repeat the words after her. That way it’s easier to realize which
muscles are engaged while speaking. I thought it was really weird to watch
myself in the beginning but it really does help to get the pronunciation right…
so don’t worry about what you look like –
just do it! ;-)
In case you got curious and want to check out Amy’s
videos as well, there you go:
How to do an American Accent – Part 1
How to do an American Accent – Part 2
How to do an American Accent – Part 3
How to do an American Accent – Part 4
How to do an American Accent – Part 5
