Hi, welcome to Free, free academic English. I'm Geraldine and today we're going to talk about pronunciation. Pronunciation is such a forgotten feature when you're studying most English programs. If you're a student, you know that I insist so much on pronunciation and here's why my anecdote. I have been studying formally English for a couple of years and I already felt very confident. Speaking a language. So I was already in the advanced phase. You know, basic, true media defense. I was in the advanced phase and there were two months of studies on phonetics. They were so interested but I was outraged that I had been studying for so long and they never told me that like there were special sounds on all of this world, on of these symbols, on a hat being, and then I had been speaking incorrectly. Man, I felt terrible. It's not just bad realizing it because you know, starting to realize you start making profits. The problem was that I felt like they let me speak incorrectly for so long and then it was so difficult to undo what it was done already. This is called facilizations. You have learned something in a way and it's wrong. It turns out that it wasn't book, it was book, it turns out that it was an it but it was like nobody said anything before. Why would you do that? Well, anyways, then I said I don't want that for you. I don't want you to be in that position. So what's going to be an pronunciation today? I was thinking about why this happens because it's been studied. It's known that in order to speak, you need to hear in order to write, you need to read. So the first step is listening. If you want to speak, you need to listen. Obviously you're not going to pay a fee to hear people to saying, making nonsense, speaking in a language you don't understand. So nobody does that. Maybe someone does, let me know. Okay, but how do you learn this? The first thing is listening. You want to speak? Do you want to speak? Listen. So you need to listen. Pay attention. Notice the way this language is spoken. If you want to speak this language and which you need to hear the distinctive features it has. This language has very distinct sounds that other languages do not have. It has a particular rhythm, it's rhythmic. It has a particular intonation depending on the context. It has many contractions when spoken and many reductions. So when you get all that, you get the right pronunciation of the language, a natural way of speaking this language. And how do you get that? Where do you get that? Well, where would you get the rhythm? The best source for rhythm is music. So if you listen to something in English, there you will get the rhythm. In music you can also get and you will definitely get all the reductions and contractions of the language. Because for music, for the rhythm, you use a lot of contractions and reductions. So with music you will get lots of help with rhythm, contractions, and reductions in English. But those aren't all the features. Then with TV, movies, or it comes or any program you want to watch, then you will get the samples for the intonation. Also, I would say contractions and the reductions. But the more informal what you're watching, the more contractions and reductions you will find. Special reductions. Because contractions or vernatural, but reductions are more like a fast-paced English, more informal way of speaking. I'd say. And then you have this particular sounds. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to get these sounds in songs, in particular songs, or people speaking because all of the sounds are combined. And maybe that is why it might seem like the most difficult part because if you're not an I do speaker of English, you don't know the sounds. So this particular sounds need to be studied. And to be understood better, some amazing people have created on an example that help incredibly. So those are the three main sources. So when you have the sources now, how do you do it? Step by step. No rushing here, remember. First, not a sin. Just knowing. First, just knowing that this is a different language that we don't understand that there are different sounds. It's a different way of speaking. Start paying attention outside. So you have the real movie and maybe you've seen it. But you never heard what people were saying. Maybe even so, in English, but you didn't hear because people were just reading this of titles. Not saying that the titles are bad, except titles have helped me. If you can do it, with all the titles, good for you. But subtitles do help you associate the sound, even if it's in the same language or the translation. They are both helpful, very helpful. First, you need to pay attention. After starting attention, you will start seeing, noticing some differences. Some, you want to pick some sounds. You can start picking some sounds. That is it. Let's only have to do, listen, but listen actively. Listen actively. Then you will start practicing. After you have heard, then you can repeat. It's not listen and repeat. It's actually listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen and repeat. After a lot of listening, you'll start repeating. And the first time you're trying, well repeating, it's not going to sound the same. But you're going to start trying. And then you continue practicing and practicing and practicing. And once you get there, you don't stop. You need to continue practicing because if not, your tongue will forget all about it. Your mouth is going to forget how to make the sound. If you don't keep practicing, that's how you learn pronunciation. So there's a lot of listening to it. So if you think you're ready to start improving your pronunciation, I'll give you some places where you can start. Where can you start? My favorite YouTube channel, Rachel's English. Rachel shows you how to pronounce every single sound. She has many verses. She has lots of material. Don't feel overwhelmed. Start with the single sounds. Start with single sounds and then move on. She has lots of playlists so you can just go there and have fun. You can spend your life watching the videos. There are also new summons. Also, there's this page that shows you the symbols, the sounds, examples, a lot more examples on how you could associate also the letter combinations with the sounds, especially the vowels because they're a crazy combination in English. Let's face it. Well, one important thing to learn is the International Phonetic Alphabet. It has all of the sounds for all the spoken languages or most probably spoken languages and they're adapted symbols for English. So when you look for a word in a dictionary, for example, you will see some symbols there. And maybe in one dictionary, you see one symbol in another dictionary, you'll see another symbol. So every dictionary has a guide to with examples of which sound is which. But, well, internet helps a lot because you have the dictionary, you have the pronunciation, but you will also have the symbols. The Phonetic symbol, so you can start using them. On another video, we will learn how to use a dictionary. Your dictionary, your best friend, don't forget it. There's always room for improvement. Remember, I'm improving also. I still have problems with pronunciation. I know, and I'm still studying too. So it just keeps studying to find a way you will enjoy the most. If you enjoy music, well, them with music. Look for the lyrics of the song. Learn there. If you like TV, Netflix, it's a great source. But Netflix and music are great sources once you pay attention to them. So that's it for the end of the show. If you need individual sounds, there are also sources for those individual sounds that you need to learn. And practice. It was important to learn. Learn and practice, practice, practice, and practice. There's lots of repetition here. Thank you for watching. Subscribe. And hopefully, see you soon.