5 STEPS TO SPEAK A NEW LANGUAGE (CHAPTER 8)

Hay come back again with me, after I publish chapter 1 until 7. Nowadays, I want to share chapter 8. Really amazing for me, cause this book make me interesting and it is make me be better.

Please give me suggest to be better. Grab guys..

5 Steps to speak a new language (Hung Q. Pham)

CHAPTER 8 (Polish Your Pronunciation)

“Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” - HENRY FORD

Sound stressing – the basic element of good pronunciation

Observing Singaporians and Indians speaking English, I found the reason behind this difference. The basic factor here is sound stressing (or sound emphasizing). English uses stress or emphasis on sounds to differentiate words—for 97 example, conTENT and CONtent are different words with very different meanings, and the only indication is the placement of stress or emphasis.

Sound stressing directly creates intonation.

When we stress sounds properly, it will naturally create a specific up and down pattern for the sentence we are pronouncing, which is referred to as intonation. If the stressing of sounds is wrong, the intonation then will be different. Intonation creates the melody of a language. Intonation of sentences and pronunciation of words are the two basic factors that help the audience recognize what we are saying.

Sound stressing has a direct impact on the quality of your word pronunciation.

 In order to pronounce a word correctly, you need to get three factors correct—the vowels, the consonants and the stresses.

Sound stressing helps you speak at the native speaker’s speed.

Experience trying to catch up with the native speaker’s speed brings two benefits:

·         Firstly, it helps us better our listening skills because speaking fast helps us get familiar with the normal speed of the native speakers. If we can speak as fast as they do, we will more likely be able to hear and understand them.

·         Secondly, practicing at the native speaker’s speed forces you to address the sound stressing correctly. When we speak slowly, we will tend to have no stressing at all. But as we try to catch up the speed, we will naturally mimic the intonation at the same time. As you see, with proper sound stressing, you will have all three factors: quality of word pronunciation, intonation and speed.

develop your speaking skills in three steps.

 Step 1: Develop your fluency

Its core concept is that you need to set aside the pronunciation issue when you speak. When practicing your speaking, you do not need to worry about your pronunciation. Just speak the way you feel comfortable the most.  You will fully focus on selecting the right words and putting them into the right order.

Step 2: Practice your pronunciation separately

To focus only on pronunciation and set aside the sentence building process, you can practice reading aloud rather than speaking spontaneously.

Step 3: Put the two things together.

If you look back at all the previous chapters, you will see a framework that I have built up in a step-by-step manner. The framework can be described as following:

1.      Acquire the most common words and phrases by the Free reading and Sound-mapping listening techniques.

2.      Start the first stage of speaking by practicing your free writing. The more you practice, the more quickly you will be able to pick up words and sort them into a proper order.

3.       Develop your fluency first by practicing speaking without worrying about pronunciation. If you can write it down, you can speak it out.

4.      Develop your pronunciation skills separately by practicing reading aloud.

5.      Polish your speaking with pronunciation.

Who to talk to, where and what about?

A.    Self talk—the secret weapon

how do you practice self-talk? Right after a writing practice session, try to speak out loud what you have just read, listened to, and written. Just like when you practice writing, do not check your dictionary and accept mistakes. Try to speak loudly and don’t worry about pronunciation yet. Every time you don’t know what to say, think about the questions who, what, when, how, where, why.

B.     Make your learning process more interesting

To make your language practice more meaningful and less boring, try to make them valuable in terms of content. For example, if you are good at using Photoshop (a software to edit photos), think about posting a video in which you speak in your target language instructing others how to edit a photograph.

C.     Practice with an article written in your mother tongue

Simply select some page of a book or an article written in your mother tongue that has something to do with the reading, listening or writing session that you have done for the day. Then, you practice by telling others what is in the article using your target language. When you practice this technique, please keep in mind that you are not translating the article from your mother tongue to your target language. Just try to describe it in your target language as closely as you can.