How do you build more awareness of how you pronounce words?

sporedandroid · Postby **sporedandroid** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:14 pm

So I tried the exercise of saying a vowel and moving your tongue and listening to how it changes. Doesn’t really work for me. It stays the same.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/3xmY8N_nWS4[/youtube]

In a linguistics textbook I got the idea of putting a lollipop stick in your mouth and see how it moves when you say diphthongs. Maybe that will work better for me. What works well for you?

reineke · Postby **reineke** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:25 pm

P is for Pronunciation.

https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/20 ... unciation/

NoManches · Postby **NoManches** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:49 pm

sporedandroid wrote:So I tried the exercise of saying a vowel and moving your tongue and listening to how it changes. Doesn’t really work for me. It stays the same.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/3xmY8N_nWS4[/youtube]

In a linguistics textbook I got the idea of putting a lollipop stick in your mouth and see how it moves when you say diphthongs. Maybe that will work better for me. What works well for you?

One thing that really helped me recognize pronunciation errors in Spanish was listening to my classmates say things incorrectly. I think hearing bad vowels made me really conscious of trying to pronounce them correctly. Tons of listening is great because you know what the language should sound like it. However, just because you know what it should sound like doesn't mean you have the ability to make the same sounds that you can recognize. You can try recording yourself and comparing yourself with a native speaker. This takes a lot of repetition and hearing yourself speak can get really annoying.

It seems like you have the right idea by trying to work on pronunciation by strengthening face muscles. One piece of advice that was given to me by a tutor was to smile and with your face smiling say the vowels in Spanish. I'm sure there are other exercises out there and I'm curious to know what they are as well.

Actually....I forgot that I added this article to my "Pocket" app a long time ago and haven't found the time to read it. Seems like pretty good information!

https://www.imageneseducativas.com/ejer ... -lenguaje/

And by the way, take my advice with a grain of salt. I would never be confused for a native speaker, and I don't think my accent is all that great although my pronunciation is usually a little better than decent. I can make it so the average native speaker can't tell English is my first language, and they instantly know I learned my Spanish from Mexicans because of prosody and vocabulary.

Dragon27 · Postby **Dragon27** » Tue Feb 05, 2019 6:35 am

sporedandroid wrote:So I tried the exercise of saying a vowel and moving your tongue and listening to how it changes. Doesn’t really work for me. It stays the same.

You won't be able to do it straight away. Being able to consciously place your tongue in the right position (or control the pitch of your voice) is an acquired skill that takes time.
What do you mean by "It stays the same"? You try to move your tongue, but the sound doesn't change? Try doing it "from the sound". Say one vowel, and then another, and try to notice (to feel) the difference of your mouth configuration and then work from that (slowly transition from one vowel sound to another and see how the sound changes and your tongue moves in your mouth). Notice also the movement of your jaw (and your lips), it changes its position for different vowels as well (to accomodate the movement of your tongue).

Here's another video about producing vowels.

sporedandroid · Postby **sporedandroid** » Tue Feb 05, 2019 8:42 am

Dragon27 wrote:
sporedandroid wrote:So I tried the exercise of saying a vowel and moving your tongue and listening to how it changes. Doesn’t really work for me. It stays the same.

You won't be able to do it straight away. Being able to consciously place your tongue in the right position (or control the pitch of your voice) is an acquired skill that takes time.
What do you mean by "It stays the same"? You try to move your tongue, but the sound doesn't change? Try doing it "from the sound". Say one vowel, and then another, and try to notice (to feel) the difference of your mouth configuration and then work from that (slowly transition from one vowel sound to another and see how the sound changes and your tongue moves in your mouth). Notice also the movement of your jaw (and your lips), it changes its position for different vowels as well (to accomodate the movement of your tongue).

Here's another video about producing vowels.

I try to move my tongue, but the sound pretty much stays the same. I guess I’ll try to do it from the sound more.

zenmonkey · Postby **zenmonkey** » Tue Feb 05, 2019 9:16 am

sporedandroid wrote:
Dragon27 wrote:
sporedandroid wrote:So I tried the exercise of saying a vowel and moving your tongue and listening to how it changes. Doesn’t really work for me. It stays the same.

You won't be able to do it straight away. Being able to consciously place your tongue in the right position (or control the pitch of your voice) is an acquired skill that takes time.
What do you mean by "It stays the same"? You try to move your tongue, but the sound doesn't change? Try doing it "from the sound". Say one vowel, and then another, and try to notice (to feel) the difference of your mouth configuration and then work from that (slowly transition from one vowel sound to another and see how the sound changes and your tongue moves in your mouth). Notice also the movement of your jaw (and your lips), it changes its position for different vowels as well (to accomodate the movement of your tongue).

Here's another video about producing vowels.

I try to move my tongue, but the sound pretty much stays the same. I guess I’ll try to do it from the sound more.

The video at the top of the thread isn't the best for vowel production exercises. It's more than just tongue position and includes, like Dragon27 says, general mouth position also. Take a look at the Glossika pronunciation videos, they tend to do a reasonable job at providing sounds you can mimic and the IPA.

reineke · Postby **reineke** » Tue Feb 05, 2019 9:20 pm

Sayonaroo · Postby **Sayonaroo** » Tue Feb 05, 2019 10:31 pm

I like watching youtube videos about it like this and this for Spanish and this and this for French. I also find youtube videos about filler words and slang useful ie this

what languages do you need help pronouncing?? Turkish and Hebrew??

WildGinger10 · Postby **WildGinger10** » Wed Feb 06, 2019 2:43 am

In Germany I worked with a phonetics expert (who was also German) to work on proper pronunciation, which was both incredibly frustrating ("BUT I THOUGHT THAT'S THE WAY I SAID IT!!!") and extremely helpful. Having non-professional native speakers critique me was also helpful, but less helpful as they could often only tell me when I was wrong, but give no advice on how to improve.

golyplot · Postby **golyplot** » Wed Feb 06, 2019 3:18 am

In French, I have a lot of trouble with u vs ou. I've watched tutorial videos and practiced putting my tongue in different positions, but I still can't hear the difference unless I have an isolated minimal pair side by side and am concentrating on it.

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How do you build more awareness of how you pronounce words?

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