G'day, what are you up to mate? Today, what I'm going to talk about is the most effective way to learn not just pronunciation but English per se. What does it mean? Well, let's get find out!
Unless you were born in an English speaking country, very very very very few people in Japan can have the potential to learn English naturally like native speakers. Otherwise, we've got to make sure that every baby step has to be gone through, right? Like me, I'd started learning 44 sounds of English pronunciation thoroughly after I realised that it was almost impossible for me to master impeccable pronunciation in the first place. Yes, undeniably true. How did I learn? Well, that was dead simple. I went to a bookshop and purchased an English-English dictionary, along with one Japanese-written grammar text and English-written one as well. That's all what I got. And, I must say, these three were sufficient enough to master all essential skill to be able to use English in a practical sense. Particularly, if you are already over 20 it's gonna be extremely hard to learn English without any textbook and dictionary, especially pronunciation.
Every learner will have to undergo baby steps to learn English. Unlike native speakers, non-native ones including myself absolutely ought to fully understand 44 sounds of English pronunciation, how they are sounded, how the sounds are produced from your mouth correctly. I've seen so many students who were lazy about learning this sort of thing, which had unfortunately an adverse effect on their English skills, especially spoken one. And, this circumstance frequently eventuates in having a hard time fixing pronunciation from scratch. Ideally, well before learning grammar, vocabulary or etymology, pronunciation has to be learnt, which makes your English learning journey so much easier.
What you should be doing is to make sure you fully understand 44 sounds of English pronunciation, and then you start reading an English-English dictionary. Why? Because, if you've fully understood the sounds you could read phonemic symbols to pronounce words, definitions and example sentences nearly correctly. I hardly recommend jumping the gun by listening to native speakers' talks, watching movies, dramas or etc. without understanding 44 sounds of English pronunciation. This is disaster, right? You know how excruciatingly you're gonna suffer in terms of pronunciation in the long run. Please make sure that you apparently won't be able to learn English like babies who are born and bred in an English-speaking country.
As you can see from the image below, can you read the word 'register' without having a look at the word itself? I mean, you just look at the phonemic symbols. And, then you read it aloud in a correct way.
You should know how r sound is pronounced. And, then "rɛ" R+E sound, which is very tricky if you don't follow phonemic charts. E sound in Japanese is completely different, which is why you ought to learn and fully understand symbols, otherwise I highly doubt that you can emulate native sounds as you listen. Maybe you could, to some extent, but nevertheless what you believe in what you are trying to mimic is sounded wonkily, which might not be understood by ordinary native speakers, simply because, although it sounds just similar, you don't produce sounds in a correct manner. To solve this problem, simply you need to learn 44 sounds of English pronunciation. There is no way for you to master pronunciation unless you are born and bred with an English speaking family. When you look up a word in the dictionary, you have to be able to read the word immediately and easily in accordance with phonemic symbols. If you've fully understood and been fully capable of pronouncing each symbol impeccably, then I can't find any issue when it comes to reading and speaking. Maybe listening and writing as well.
Those who've been struggling to fix pronunciation and developing English skills are all encouraged to contact me now, so that I can offer an appropriate learning package accordingly. This English blog per se is also a good start of practising English pronunciation.
Thanks for reading my blog. Ta!