Pronuncia - Tecniche di pronuncia - Trascrizione
Hello everybody! Welcome to the EnglishBlog. In this podcast, you’ll be learning some interesting techniques to improve your English pronunciation.
Before starting, let me first explain that the lesson is divided into two parts:
PART ONE: you’ll be listening to some useful techniques. You’ll then hear a short explanation of these words, followed by an example of how they are used.
PART TWO: you’ll be listening to two people having a conversation in a university canteen.
So let’s start!
Woman: First let’s learn some pronunciation techniques.
Woman: Pronunciation techniques
Man: As the English written language is very different to its spoken language, it’s important for every student to find a technique that suits them to improve their pronunciation and learn the phonetic alphabet.
Listen to this short conversation.
Woman: Your English pronunciation is so good. What technique do you use?
Man: Well I’ve had a lot of English speaking girlfriends, I think that’s probably why.
Woman: Minimal Pair Practice
Man: This is a useful technique, often used in the classroom, but you can do it yourself also. It involves the practising of 2 different sounds, such as:
Ship – sheep
Bit – beat
Bin – bean
Slip - sleep
Woman: Utilising a dictionary and an address book.
Man: To improve your knowledge of sounds, and the phonetic alphabet, take the time to write down any new words, their translation and their phonetic transcription.
For example:
Woman: What are you doing with that little black book? Looking up more girlfriends’ numbers?
Man: How dare you? I’m noting down the phonetic transcription of trouble actually. This little black book, is for new vocabulary and their sounds as I learn new words.
Woman: It is important to study phonetics, and learn the symbols as you go, but, remember that American, Australian and British accents are very different as are regional accents and dialects.
Now you will listen to a conversation between two people in a university canteen, discussing their problems with English pronunciation.
Woman: I’m exhausted, after 2 hours of phonetics?
Man: Why? What did you study in the lesson?
Woman: Well the first hour and a half, was about how to move your tongue, when you speak English.
Man: Sounds interesting.
Woman: Well at least I can say “the” properly now. Did you know that you have to put the tip of your tongue between your front teeth to make the “th” sound correctly
Man: No, but I don’t think I want to hear about this, while I’m eating lunch.
Woman: Sorry! Anyway, the last half an hour was on minimal pair practice, which was great fun, and useful to learn the long “ee” and short “e”. For example, sheet not sh*t, and beach not bi***h.
Man: OK, you can teach me something about it all after lunch. Eat something now, you must be starving.
Woman: If you wish you can hear this lesson again. In the meantime we hope we have helped you to be more confident with your English. Watch out for the next topic and thank you for using the EnglishBlog




Hello everybody,
my compliments for the EnglishBlog; it's very useful and I'm glad to have opportunity to "be in contact" with English every day.As your regular visitor, I'd have only one thing to suggest you: the written English is as important as the spoken, so I propose one more sort of exercise - dictation. I often have difficulties to write correctly some words or expressions and so I have to use a " check spelling" option which, fortunately, exists in my mailbox.I think that dictation is the very best way to improve our ability to write English, considering the difference between the pronunciation and its respective spelling.
Hoping for your attention to my propose. Yours sincerely,
Aleksandra