How to distinguish right from wrong phonetic symbols?

Frequently asked questions on English pronunciation learning

What skills should you master in correct English pronunciation?

1. When pronouncing vowels, it mainly depends on the size of chin opening and closing and the mouth shape. Pronunciation focuses on the way the speaker blocks in the mouth, the sound emitted by the blocking part, and the phenomenon that the vocal cords vibrate or not.

2. Effectively grasp the characteristics of voice contrast. To learn correct English pronunciation, you must be able to judge which pronunciation is correct; Although these two sounds are similar, they are important factors in English semantic comparison. For example, there is a contrast between /i/ and//in English, and the tightness of oral muscles or the position and lip shape of the tongue are different. Therefore, learners must practice and listen to sounds repeatedly, and cultivate their ability to listen and distinguish sounds, so as to imitate correct pronunciation.

3. The same sound is pronounced differently in different positions. For example, English sonic boom /p/ a word has a strong aspirated sound at the beginning, similar to ピ; After the letter s, it becomes an aspirated sound, similar to ㄅ; After the end of a sentence or a consonant, the airflow does not explode, similar to the end of ten in Minnan dialect.

What should we pay attention to when learning correct English pronunciation?

1. The combination rules of each language are different. Even if the same sound appears in different positions, the difficulty of learning is different. Therefore, the order of practice must be from easy to difficult, and the more difficult the phonetic symbol combination must be put into practice.

2. Correct pronunciation is not only learning K.K. phonetic symbols well or memorizing the rules of pinyin, but also phonetic symbols are very important. Just pronouncing the consonants and vowels in a word correctly does not mean that it will be pronounced correctly in actual English communication. Because many pronunciations in a sentence must be integrated at the same time, if you can only pronounce one tone, you will make many mistakes when you speak English. Therefore, pronunciation exercises must be applied to the most commonly used sentences and situations in daily conversation, including practical exercises after listening, distinguishing and reading.

3. The choice of words for all kinds of exercises should be based on the most commonly used basic words in spoken dialogue, mainly on commonly used sentences and dialogues, so as to avoid the practice of difficult words or tongue twisters that are rare in spoken language.

Can you learn correct pronunciation by teaching with foreign students?

Some learners think that pronunciation is innate, or that only when they grow up in Britain and America and follow foreign teachers can they learn well. These are all wrong ideas. Everyone has different sensitivity to pronunciation. The learning environment in childhood has an influence on pronunciation learning, but it doesn't mean that you can't learn English well in the domestic environment. The real key to learning is whether there is a good first teacher to guide them, and whether the concepts and methods of learning English are correct, that is, whether they are needed.

How do I know if my pronunciation is correct?

Learners can record their pronunciation, listen carefully to whether their pronunciation is the same as that on the pronunciation teaching CD, or consult British and American English teachers to find out the problems and weaknesses of pronunciation, and then practice and improve.

What textbooks and channels can I learn pronunciation through?

For learners who want to correct pronunciation mistakes, they can learn pronunciation well through repeated language contact and correct and clear imitation objects (American English teachers, British and American people or pronunciation teaching CDs, etc.). ), and master the phonetic features of English, know what to listen to and what phonetic features to pay attention to.

At present, there are many books, tapes and CDs about English pronunciation on the market. In addition, the teaching website also provides online learning channels, or you can take pronunciation courses and be taught correct pronunciation skills by American English teachers. To learn correct English pronunciation, you must strengthen your listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, so the selected learning materials or channels must help you achieve these goals.

As long as you dare to say it … you don't have to say it in a standard way … is that right?

From the sociolinguistic point of view, as long as the communication is correct and smooth, English with a foreign accent is no problem. However, incorrect pronunciation will often hinder the smooth communication and even cause unnecessary misunderstanding and embarrassment. Besides, when talking to us, British and Americans often judge whether they speak English by their correct pronunciation. Therefore, in order to achieve the purpose of effective communication, they must be able to pronounce clearly and correctly.

When should the correct pronunciation be established? Is it more difficult to correct pronunciation as you get older? The earlier you learn, the more you can learn correct pronunciation.

Because children are sensitive to sound, it is the golden age of phonetic learning; After puberty, the ability of abstract reasoning improves rapidly, which is suitable for the expansion of vocabulary and the strengthening of grammatical ability. However, it must be noted that no matter what the teaching content and the quality of teachers are, most parents think that "learning more is better than learning less" and "learning early is better than learning late". However, if the teacher lacks professional pronunciation knowledge and the pronunciation is incorrect, the sooner the child follows, the sooner the wrong pronunciation will be finalized. On the contrary, more time and energy must be invested to correct it. On the other hand, the ability to pronounce correctly is not easily lost. Therefore, although it is helpful for children to learn correct pronunciation early, teachers must be selective in order to achieve twice the result with half the effort.

How to choose the correct English pronunciation books and what should be included in a complete pronunciation textbook?

A complete set of phonetic teaching materials must be an English phonetic course specially designed for the needs of learners with Chinese background. Provide complete explanations and exercises for common pronunciation problems of Chinese people, so as to suit the remedy to the case and truly solve the problems faced by learners in pronunciation.

A good English pronunciation textbook should include several contents:

1. Voice introduction:

Understand the characteristics of pronunciation, introduce the pronunciation methods of consonants and vowels in detail, show the pronunciation skills with pictures, teach you what parts and actions to pronounce correctly, practice the pronunciation of sounds at the beginning, middle and end of words, and the pronunciation of sounds in phrases and short sentences.

2. Reasonable identification practice:

Aiming at one or more groups of sounds with similar pronunciation and unclear pronunciation, this paper points out the possible mistakes and puts forward the explanation and correction methods.

3. Listening test:

Include identifying the pronunciations used by CD-ROM in words, phrases and sentences, or judging which pronunciation is correct, so as to train pronunciation sensitivity and listening ability.

What are the main reasons that affect the correct pronunciation?

Some people think that as long as you practice with the teacher repeatedly, or listen to English radio and follow the words, you can learn correct pronunciation. However, since Taiwan Province Province is not an English-speaking country, unless they have a keen sense of pronunciation, most students learn English pronunciation by feeling, substitute some similar sounds in Chinese, or don't know how to correct their pronunciation.

Which is more helpful for English learning, natural pronunciation or K.K. phonetic symbols? Will adopting natural pronunciation affect the learning of English pronunciation?

Basically, "natural pronunciation" and K.K. phonetic symbols have their own advantages and disadvantages and can complement each other. Although the use of "natural pronunciation" can achieve specific learning results in a short time, it will hinder the learning of English pronunciation in some cases. Because the correspondence between phonetics and letters often changes due to historical phonetic changes, it is often impossible to achieve absolute correspondence rules. In addition, American English cram schools have been held in the market in recent years. However, the content of these formulas may have an impact on English pronunciation learning in the future, because it virtually encourages students to learn English with the familiar Putonghua pronunciation system. Teaching English pronunciation through the example of Putonghua will reduce students' exposure to English pronunciation. Over time, students will naturally apply Putonghua pronunciation to English and produce Chinglish pronunciation.

What teaching abilities should a good English phonetics teacher have?

Teachers' own pronunciation must be correct and clear, and they must also receive phonetics training. Only in this way can we distinguish whether students' pronunciation is correct or not and understand the problems existing in students' general pronunciation. You can also clearly demonstrate the pronunciation methods of English pronunciation and guide students to pay attention to the differences between Chinese and English.

What should we pay attention to in phonetics teaching?

1. The teaching content and progress should be shallow and slow. Children should not have the mentality of "quick success and instant benefit" in English learning, and unreasonable expectations will hinder their interest in learning; However, students will ignore the accuracy of pronunciation by constantly expanding words and sentence patterns from the beginning.

2. Help students find out pronunciation problems, overcome pronunciation difficulties, and teach students how to master the characteristics of English pronunciation structure, so as to improve students' pronunciation discrimination and accuracy and strengthen their oral communication skills.

3. When explaining pronunciation, we should pay equal attention to theory and practice, avoid difficult and abstract language and academic terms, use easy-to-observe pronunciation features instead, and observe the sounds that can be made by mouth shape changes with the help of pictures and mirrors.

4. Pronunciation practice should take into account the interest of explanation, point out misunderstandings and embarrassing scenes that may be caused by phonetic confusion with cartoons, point out the key points of phonetic errors, and then provide various exercises for errors.

5. Make good use of tapes, movies and other teaching materials, so that students can get in touch with correct English pronunciation in class or after class and try to figure out the characteristics of English pronunciation. In teaching activities, we should also pay attention to whether the students' pronunciation movements are correct and correct them in time.

Will correct pronunciation affect English learning?

From the teaching experience, students with correct pronunciation are usually more confident, dare to speak and practice, and have a higher interest in learning. On the contrary, students with incorrect pronunciation will not only affect their English listening, but also lack self-confidence, fearing that they will be laughed at for their nonstandard speech, which will reduce their interest and willingness to learn, thus affecting the effect of English learning.