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Pronunciation: Getting to Know Your Mouth

What we're gonna be doing is an exercise in how to get to know your mouth. And by this I want us to familiarize, familiarize ourselves with the sounds that we make in English and to feel on almost touch. The sound on a great technique for doing this is to actually watch ourselves in the mirror. We also have bonus content as well, where you can see Asa, you can see me pronouncing several sounds, vowels and continents in different languages and how we actually go about making these sounds. And this is something that might sound self explanatory. But at the end of the day is the simplest thing there is. But we need to be familiar with where we're making these sounds so we don't we can record ourselves now. But for the audience here in the studio and for you. Oh, I would like us to print, try and pronounce the following bowels, so actually we can make it a bit a bit more complex on. I'd like us to say all of the vowels that we have in English in a row, open your mouth and say after me the ...

vote or pronounce after me the vowels and try and figure out because it's something that we very rarely ever do. We don't analyze where we're making these vowels in our in our mouth. So after me, please pronounce Ah ah Now we're gonna go t e so a I just got it. Ah, a ah, Did you feel the Yeah, Let's take it one step further. Ah e I a So I can see already if you can't. I mean, I could really feel it. I mean, I can Looking at you, I can really see where your your your mouth, your lips and your your mouth itself is moving. So let's say all of them together Ah e o And then really quickly a So we basically gone from the front and open toe Hlavac here and closed. So are now. When we do this in English, we don't need to think about this because we simply no, that's how we pronounce it. But when we come to learning a language, we need to understand this because there are bowels essentially in other languages that we don't know about a great help. Is that something called the I P A. Which is the international phonetic alphabet. So here, for example, we have the vowels and we can see that there are much, much, much more than the ones that we have in English. Now, these air, all the vowels far As far as I know, these are all the vowels that, uh that exist in all the languages in the world. So as you can see, there are much, much more than thin the simple five that we have in English. But here we have There are the A R and then the E. And then we can see where exactly these air made in our mouth. So we have when the mouth is open when it's closed and then the front essential on the back. And if we actually go through this again, we can see whereabouts, and we can feel more or less where we pronounce in this. So our is open and it's at the front. It's not exactly at the front because E is further at the front, but it's when the lipids when the mouth is closed. So if you say ah, I e and try and make a sound between on e. So go from I E. and in another language. You've already got a sound. And then if we go from o toe now these air sounds that we don't have in English But we know from going off the I p. A. That we can actually make thes sounds because all we need to know is whether pronounced where they made in the mouth. It's not something, so it's something that we can understand straight away. But it's something that we need to practice because it's something that doesn't come to us naturally now language because we're not used to it. But it's a great help to understand that we have a little thing out there called the I. P. A. That can really help us achieve these sounds, because all we really need to know is we can we know that we can pronounce anything? We just need to know where exactly, were leaving far in the mouth. Now the same goals far pronouncing continents. The continent's, however a bit trickier because they involve different parts of the mouth in the cases. Well, for now, for vowels, we also have nasal vowels, so we have, for example, like in Portuguese and in French. We have a lot of nasal vowels like and then even though this written with two continents, that infection would be on. And that's, um so we need to get their air going through our Nor was if you say our the beginning, it's not bad this but what we want to be a me for is this. And then we can use the I p a. To see where we should be pronouncing this when we're when actually comes to that we just remembered. I mean, we always need to breathe, but we always need to make sure that a part of it is going through the nose as well. While we're speaking and we can get used to, it's not a problem. So either way safer the constants. We have exactly the same, uh, the same thing. Same set up on. The great thing is that the I p. A. Is no is. That is not just for one for one language, there isn't I p A. That covers all the sounds, most of the sounds of the human languages, but we also have on I pay for each language so we can go online and just typing I p a for French, and then we find a list of all the sounds that they relevant to French in an I p a. Now the thing is, as you might have seen, that we have here sometimes letters that don't look like the letters that were familiar with. So sometimes we need to acquaint ourselves with this and understand, and we don't have to memorize the I. P. A. It's not necessary. But what we can do is we can really weaken If we want to delve into this further. Then we can take the time and actually understand what the differences between for example, a glass it'll which is pronounced here. You gotta a very good example of a glass. It'll is in English in British English, where you've got the word and seen this. Susie was so good at the company, then would you like to portray pronouncing this word in cock me bottle? It's a bottle sos. A xer bottle, exactly a ball on this ball. These teas to tease ah is a bottle stop. You also have it in Arabic. Sounds slightly different, actually much different, but it's essentially the same idea and then we have all these really weird things. So here's one for example, these two. We don't know what looking at these. If we still spoke old English, we would know what they were. Does anybody know? Present Perhaps what these two letters are are the sounds They exist both in modern English and I will give you an example. Can you try pronouncing the different the trying pronounce Those would think on the two different kinds of th think Try saying, think with that I think I think it's nice. Think on third, we don't say that we say that these correspond to these. This is what they used to look like in old English. And if we if we if we write, if we learn Icelandic off fairies, they still have these sound these letters, we got rid of them in English. We just change them toe th and here, for example. We have sure or certain azure. We also have a jury Ning mission. It doesn't look like if we have this, but we do. We have it in the word measure they spelled with an s, but in French, it's also can be with it can also be a noise is a j actually RG But in English we have this sound It just doesn't look like we have it what we actually do so we can always take the time to learn this on toe make it relevant to language that we're learning. As I said for each language is an I p A and Inter Teoh complement this. We always have such exercises like the pronouncing exercises on the bubble up. Or we could just listen to exercises. We can listen to an audiobook we can. There are so many ways of actually of immersing ourselves in the sounds of the language. And as I said, What do we do when it comes to acquiring unusual sounds? Now the I p. A. Obviously is a great help, but we need to understand what that sound actually means. And what do we do if we're reading something in the I p. A. Says sounds similar to Well, we have a problem. What we can do is we can go online, Andi, if where we can actually google the word, we can put the word in on the some There. There are language banks out there dictionaries, online dictionaries, which have a pronunciation of the word so we can go into that and we can actually pronounce it. So, for example, if you go onto A and the Irish Dictionary, there aren't that many. But there's one. Andi is probably the main one. It be like one of the main English dictionary, select Merriam Webster and Oxford and so one. And it's for the Irish language. And then you can have you can find out how, for example, you pronounce words like Tisha finishes third shot, and it may be something that you all are. After six hours of learning, tired, seeking to the two words, you can say Tom Etosha, which means I am tired literally so me and is me tired or taught OSHA album, which is there is tired on there is tiredness on me. But either way to show Tosha on these sounds don't necessarily. They don't really exist in English, but we can listen to this online and realized how this is pronounced. And if we don't do that, then there are also other ways of doing so. I've just noted down here as well, like how do we do this? that's one technique. Why does it challenges? Obviously, because it's something that we're not, but where off? We're not necessarily aware of when we come to first pronouncing them, but we're going to be learning tips that enable us to actually go out and pronounce them correctly. So one is the I. P. A. The pronunciation courses that I was talking about already recording and seeing ourselves once you put that this into practice were already quite familiar with this. Now on last but not least when that may fade, personal favors again is music. We can listen to the way the's sounds air used. For example, I remember picking up when I was doing Turkish on Turkish has a really brilliant on, uh, for example, like gay Leo, I'm not gonna pounce. They are, Which is he? She it comes or Gigio without pronouncing the R is coming. Now you might see that I wouldn't be tempted just to pronounce the R is like Gil your or Gilyard giddy or a Turkish. It isn't. It is. It's an unusual are. And if you listen to Turkish music, they love emphasizing that, Ah, there's always some words at the end and it's always Gelli are did the yage on our bet. I harbored. And it's this which is so unique to Turkish. It's so is such a trademark of the turkeys language, I would say, and listening to this I remember, like listening to songs. And then I'd be basically imitating it, be imitating the singer and then realizing that, Oh, it's actually you know, kid Iarge Gelli, our galley AJ and then harbored Harbored Ledge this ash and then you've got it. So the more you listen to this, the more naturally becomes. The more normal it becomes on, the more you're able to integrate this. And there's some people that say our music doesn't help. I'm convinced the completely convinced of the opposite. I really, really think that it's a very, very vital, vital element because it's also something very cultural. It's something that helps us toe. To integrate into the language and most definitely for pronunciation and also from vocabulary, is something that will be looking at later how we can increase our cover there before this. Now the only problem is and I'm talking about this is when we have on all these have been pulled from the I p h r. And what happens when we have say other things that we don't exist at all? Andi will the I p can really help us because only the descriptions. But in certain cases as well, we can always check up the pronunciation and we can kind of understand We can try and understand where these are being Pronouncing are melts and where, for example, what they're heck is a voiceless like Libya Villa Frick. It'd now this sounds too complex. But we don't need to concentrate on stuff like this at all is actually the the moment familiar ourselves with the language. And the more we say we try and find equivalent, we're not gonna mess unnecessarily find equivalent in our language. What we can definitely find something that's similar on this now leads us on to our first exercise concerning this and one is pronouncing words. I don't think this part is actually the workbook. The 2nd 1 is which are the tongue twisters. So in this part, we're going toe focus on pronouncing they set a string off words in the Welsh language now well, she is a beautiful language, a Celtic language related to Irish to breath on. Spoken by about half a 1,000,000 people in Britain, in Wales. Andi, really interesting language, but looks very, very difficult to the English speaker and any other speaker. I'd like to, however, quickly emphasising why we're going to be doing tongue twisters. Why, no, they sound ridiculous on the great fun, and we sound should be doing them on. We develop her rhythm, beat to it, and that's something I'd like toe try it with you in a few minutes. But before we do this, I would like us to look at these three words on there. Actually, towns in way off, you're probably thinking, Yeah, he's polling might like here, especially in the 3rd 1 It is actually is the tie. I think it holds the title for the longest town name in the world on its near Snowdonia. I think, if I remember correctly, a very, very small town, and it's usually abbreviated to just best or just that, and the rest disappears. There was, however, a recently a British news reader from whales that every now and then on British TV, we have different parts of the country that are emphasize So the the temperature tonight in Glasgow and London is this and they changed the city's every single time on this one. Appeared a few weeks ago and kind of went viral on the Internet because it was this Welsh these weatherman, just really off, as if it's the most noble thing because it is is the most normal thing because we say things in English that for us a completely normal. The Albuquerque. You know, it's normal. And it's something that I wasn't Alba. OK, I'll be OK to K all quite a cake, you know, And the him it was completely normal. So in orderto because these thistles a sound on going to train I'm gonna tell you what it sounds like. We heard it before actually sounded like a cat hating. And it's so the double Ellen Welsh is. And the key to this is to raising the side of the tongue towards the roof of the mouth until you get the necessary friction from the air. And this is the key word hissing over the sides of the tongue past the teeth on. To get the necessary friction, you might have to blow with as much force as much as as as much as you can. So if we take the 1st 1 maybe the 2nd 1 because the 1st 1 is has got two of them. He's got to double l's so so safe and they say Slam slandered, No sent a very good friend Did know you're getting it Sounds very good. Flan plans and sense on some sand sand, sand, sand, sand, sand, Sand, Sand, Sand, sand, sand Slow Honestly Planet Lee Flat Netley Train breaking up So you've got slime flan, a flan, their plea flan Initially, honestly, I live infinitely. Do you live in sandals? Plundered? No. And then this one's a bit more complicated because obviously, we have all these other letters that we don't. And the why is this PW l So this is Sunday. Push Congress Kilgo British with Kabul Santis liver. So you have this W and you have the why. So this is the word for whales in Welsh. Come very. And then you have This is more like a so Sunday Sunday fresh pressed Congress and is longer Push Push. Yeah, is usually that's enough. But if you want to pronounce it completely, then that's how you say it on you contract this in on the online on Listen to about or someone that concern do it really well pronouncing this So now we know how to pronounce. So we need to go away today on then anyone you find just say Flynn innately sandaled. No, you might think you're facing at them, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter With four l's air just a long burst. Yes, exactly. So this is a fan. So the rob bushland front. Just imagine you're and you're