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Most often, phonetics in English is given quite a bit of time. After passing some basic points, many continue to focus on grammar and vocabulary in order to understand the system of language as a whole. But if you still want to get rid of your accent, and there is no opportunity to spend a couple of months in an English-speaking country, catch a small selection of tips on how to do this (there will also be links to useful resources, though with an interface from the 90s).

British or American?

This is a fairly common problem for many schools and students. It often happens that in one course both British and American types of pronunciation are mixed. Therefore, you should immediately choose the textbooks and teacher you need with the appropriate emphasis.

Work on proper articulation

Try to keep track of how your lips and tongue move as you pronounce the words and compare with examples of native speakers. On the Internet you can find nice and clear instructions: garycmartin.com , soundsofenglish.org .

Learn to divide English words into syllables

In English, the number of syllables depends on the sounds made, not the letters written. Therefore, it is important to be able to focus on them. Or just use a special service for this.

Practice reading transcription

If you are studying with a teacher, ask him or her to give assignments where whole words, phrases, and even texts are written using transcription, or their spelling needs to be matched with transcription. It is advisable to devote such practice at least 20-30 minutes once a week, especially at the initial level of language learning. By the way, for such purposes there are many useful sites: agendaweb.org , antimoon.com , thespruce.com , cambridge.org .

Continue to study phonetics and after mastering the basic rules

Make sure that the training materials that you will be engaged in, and after the Starter and Elementary levels will include work on pronunciation, and the teacher will not skip these sections of the textbook.

Work with audio and video content as much as possible

Pronunciation skills are better formed using visual examples and imitation. Therefore, try to repeat more often after the heroes of your favorite series, announcer or singer. There are special sites for this: ptetutorials.com , pteacademicexam.com , pteexampreparation.com , ptelab.com .

Don't be afraid to speak out loud

Continuing with the previous tip, try to speak English loud and distinctly as often as possible in order to get used to your pronunciation yourself. If this is done too rarely, even correctly pronounced phrases will seem wrong and strange to you. You can even record yourself on a voice recorder to analyze your mistakes in more detail and try to fix them.

Sort your entertainment content in English

Try to listen only to British or American songs, watch videos with the appropriate accent, so that you are always in the language environment you need. For example, there is a good playlist for practicing British pronunciation , as well as for American .

Gradually increase the load when working with content

You should start small - choose the simplest audio and video. As soon as you feel that it becomes easy for you to listen or watch, move to a higher level. For example, first basic phonetics lessons with explanations in the native language (perhaps you should first pay attention to the video for children, they are very clear and simple), then short fragments of TV shows and songs up to 3-5 minutes, then longer videos and audio, full series of series, films.

Practice with other people

Conversation clubs are a convenient format to understand how good your pronunciation is, because you will have to communicate with a teacher (preferably a carrier), and with other Russian-speaking club members. This is also a motivational moment, because you can make sure that other people also make mistakes (carriers also), but continue to communicate in English. And if you are confused by communication in a group, you can look for a partner to communicate in a special social network howdoyou.do or similar solutions.

We hope that these simple steps will help you improve your pronunciation at least to a level that is comfortable for you. What do you do to improve your pronunciation?

Reader Bonuses

We give free access for three months of learning English using our online courses. To do this, simply follow the link until December 31, 2017. We will be glad to see you in the individual classes of the English for IT Professionals course. Take a free introductory lesson and get comprehensive feedback on your level of knowledge, then choose a teacher and a training program to your liking!