(picture source: Matteo Maggiore)
You know, not too long ago, I thought my English pronunciation was quite alright. Almost good even. I was pronouncing voiced and unvoiced /th/-sounds correctly, and most of the time, I distinguished the /w/-sound and /v/-sound. So when I signed up for a pronunciation course at the Department of English Studies last summer semester, I thought it would be a piece of cake. Gaining ECTS-points the easiest way ever. Boy, was I wrong.
Quite at the beginning, we had to read out difficult texts in front of our teacher, who would then analyze our pronunciation mistakes. According to the teacher's feedback, the thing I most struggled with was voicing certain sounds. When I said "in the", my /th/ always became a barely voiced /d/, and basically all my /d/s at the end of words became /t/s. Surprisingly, even after knowing my weaknesses, I still could not pronounce these sounds correctly. Well, I could produce them individually, but not while speaking. It just didn't come out naturally. It felt like I needed to re-arrange my tongue between sounds in order to produce them, which resulted in awkward pauses between words or syllables. At this point I realized: theory only wouldn't get me anywhere. I needed to train my tongue like a muscle. It had to get used to new movements and positions.
During the pronunciation lessons, we repeated word pairs and dialogues we heard through headphones, while a computer program recorded our own voices individually. The program would then automatically repeat our recorded voices, therefore give us immediate feedback at how well we produced the sounds. This was immensely helpful, as I often concentrated on producing the sounds without paying attention to how they actually came out. However, the real work had to be done at home: by reading out (!) dialogues and word pairs, you really physically train your tongue and get used to producing the sounds in the way you should. In the end, it really paid off: I got a B on the oral exam, and I felt that my pronunciation had really greatly improved.
However, during the summer, I didn't practice talking English loudly that much anymore. When I talked English again, I was shocked at how worse my pronunciation had become after such a short period of time. I still know the theory of when to produce which sounds, but my physical ability to produce the sounds correctly the moment I needed to sadly worsened. So now I am back to reading texts out loud again and recording myself while doing it. Hopefully, I will soon be again on at least the same level I had reached before the summer break.
My impression is: mastering pronunciation is not like learning how to ride a bike. You have to consistently practice it, or you soon get out of practice.
Quite at the beginning, we had to read out difficult texts in front of our teacher, who would then analyze our pronunciation mistakes. According to the teacher's feedback, the thing I most struggled with was voicing certain sounds. When I said "in the", my /th/ always became a barely voiced /d/, and basically all my /d/s at the end of words became /t/s. Surprisingly, even after knowing my weaknesses, I still could not pronounce these sounds correctly. Well, I could produce them individually, but not while speaking. It just didn't come out naturally. It felt like I needed to re-arrange my tongue between sounds in order to produce them, which resulted in awkward pauses between words or syllables. At this point I realized: theory only wouldn't get me anywhere. I needed to train my tongue like a muscle. It had to get used to new movements and positions.
During the pronunciation lessons, we repeated word pairs and dialogues we heard through headphones, while a computer program recorded our own voices individually. The program would then automatically repeat our recorded voices, therefore give us immediate feedback at how well we produced the sounds. This was immensely helpful, as I often concentrated on producing the sounds without paying attention to how they actually came out. However, the real work had to be done at home: by reading out (!) dialogues and word pairs, you really physically train your tongue and get used to producing the sounds in the way you should. In the end, it really paid off: I got a B on the oral exam, and I felt that my pronunciation had really greatly improved.
However, during the summer, I didn't practice talking English loudly that much anymore. When I talked English again, I was shocked at how worse my pronunciation had become after such a short period of time. I still know the theory of when to produce which sounds, but my physical ability to produce the sounds correctly the moment I needed to sadly worsened. So now I am back to reading texts out loud again and recording myself while doing it. Hopefully, I will soon be again on at least the same level I had reached before the summer break.
My impression is: mastering pronunciation is not like learning how to ride a bike. You have to consistently practice it, or you soon get out of practice.
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