Problems In English Pronunciation

16 Pages 4058 Words

Millions of foreign students want to learn English as well as they can; for some it is only a matter of reading and writing it, but many students want to be able to speak English well,with pronunciation which can be easily understood both by their fellow-students and by English people .
Written English and spoken English are obviously very different things. Writing consists of marks on paper which make no noise and are taken in by eye,while speaking is organized sound,taken in by the ear. How can a book which is nothing but marks on paper ,help anyone to make their English sound better? The answer to this is that it can’t , not by itself. But if you will co-operate ,and listen to English as much as you can, then you will find that the instructions given in the following pages will make your ears sharper for the sound of English and when you can hear English properly you can go on and improve your performance.
Language starts with the ear. When a baby starts to talk he does it by hearing the sounds his mother makes and imitating them. If a baby is born deaf he cannot hear these sounds and therefore cannot imitate them and will not speak. But normal babies can hear and can imitate; they are wonderful imitators,and this gift of imitation ,which gives us the gift of speech,lasts for a number of years. It is will known that a child of ten years old or less can learn any language perfectly,if it is brought up surrounded by that language,no matter where it was born or who its parents were. But after this stage the ability to imitate perfectly becomes less, and we all know only to well that adults have great difficulty in mastering pronunciation(as well as other parts) of foreign languages. Some people are more talented than others’ they find pronouncing other languages less difficul, but they never find them easy. The reason for this can be found in our native language. By the time we are grown up the habits ...