Pronunciation problems of chinese learners of english feifei han, university of sydney. Spanish speakers often pronounce the american r as they would pronounce the spanish r, bringing the tip of the tongue to touch the upper palate. Obviously just doing a couple of activities once or twice may not fix the pronunciation problems your students are having. If spanish is your native language, this video will help you to fix a common mistakes that spanish speakers make when theyre speaking english. Correction of common english pronunciation mistakes made by learners with spanish as their first language. Common pronunciation problems speak english like a native. Spanish pronunciation problems speak english like a native. For the r in english, the tip of the tongue doesnt touch the upper palate, but curls back a bit as the lips round click to watch a video tutorial about the r. Hopefully, these activities for targeted practice will lead your students to a better understanding of english pronunciation so that an occasional nudge rather than nagging will keep them on track. English pronunciation for spanish speakers youtube.
A wellknown pronunciation problem, which even the highestlevel students find it hard to deal with, is the fact that spanish has no wordinitial consonant clusters such as sl,sm, sn, st, sp, sk. Students should practice for 20 minutesday as often as possible. As a pakistani student, i also face some problems in order to pronounce the english words. Youve probably heard someone tell you that all the vowels always sound the same, like, the letter a always makes the same sound in every word, so its much easier to pronounce spanish than english. Spanish speakers have some specific issues with pronouncing english words, which you can take care of through practice. English phonetics and phonology for spanish speakers b. Spanish has few extra letters than english and the way letters are pronounced is completely different raising difficulties in teaching english to. Spanish is an official language in 21 countries and territories which means there are at least as many varieties of spanish out there but some generalisations can be made as to the kind of difficulties native speakers of world spanishes have with english pronunciation. English pronunciation practice for spanish speakers. Specific american english pronunciation challenges for ells. Pdf english pronunciation for speakers of spanish researchgate. Download the free american accent guide for spanish speakers.
The fairly straightforward relationship between sound and spelling. For these examples, weve used the mexican spanish pronunciations. Pronunciation problems for arabic speakers of english. This is big mistake for those who aspire to do more than read and write in spanish, since your ability to use effective pronunciation will have a much greater impact on your ability to be understood by native. Pronunciation problems of chinese learners of english. Spanish speakers have no problem pronouncing this consonant when its in the beginning of the word as in miss or mister but when it occurs in the end of the word, they fail to close their lips. Pronunciation variations of spanishaccented english.
Participants were ten sudanese university learners of english who primarily speak arabic. How to pronounce spanish vowels all the spanish vowels are generally pronounced the same in most circumstances. Pronunciation issues and student and faculty perceptions. French 32 spanish 33 portuguese 34 chinese 35 korean 36 vietnamese 37 south asian languages 3839 arabic 40 german 41. Here we present to you the most common errors made by spanishspeaking students at pronunciation studio audio is firstly in gb english then with a spanish accent. English pronunciation for speakers of spanish fills a gaping hole in the market for books on english phonetics and pronunciation because it not only combines theoretical issues and applications to practice, but it also adopts a contrastive englishspanish approach to better suit the needs of spanishspeaking learners of english ssle, enabling them to build gradually on the knowledge gained. Pronunciation can be defined as the way in which a person sounds the words of a language while speaking.
Proper english pronunciation requires learning new sounds and new rules. Use the pages with word lists and reading practice repeatedly. Pronunciation scores were determined by a panel of seven native spanish speakers who rated oneminute segments of the learners. As many words in spanish begin with es, spanish speakers sometimes unconsciously use the eh sound before english words beginning with s. Consonants, as compared to vowels, are core to the word meaning in arabic. The research aims to identify ways through which teaching english pronunciation to spanish speakers can be made an easy and simple task covering major and minor intricacies of speaking english, pronunciation problem and understanding voicing, mouth position, syllables and specific sounds. This difference between pronunciation and spelling causes a. Broadly speaking, there are some identifiable issues that most spanish speakers tend to struggle with in their quest for english fluency. Few things are more frustrating for someone learning a foreign language than to not be understood by a native speaker.
Pdf epss dvd is aimed at meeting the needs of speakers of spanish who want to learn or teach english phonetics and phonology at. One of the common mistakes that english speakers make, is they continue to pronounce it as if it were the hard d like in dog. This is very common in spanish speakers pronunciation of english as well, leading to pronunciations like i am from espain. You can learn to avoid these common errors, and your spanishspeaking friends will know that at least youre making an effort. English phonetics and phonology for spanish speakers ub. Pdf english phonetics and phonology for spanish speakers. English pronunciation resources for native spanish speakers. There are also some studies on pronunciation errors among speakers of arabic. Anyone will tell you that spanish isnt a complicated language. Specific pronunciation challenges for ells 1516 and activities to improve pronunciation 1732 7. The reason why i have created this webinar for spanish speakers is because many of my premier membership students who i have trained online. English pronunciation practice for spanish speakers ted power. This list is a roundup of common english pronunciation problems for spanish speakers, but not representative of all issues.
English vowel data was the materials of the native speakers of english. A learner with good stress and intonation and poor pronunciation of, say, th, is very easy to understand. As far as consonant sounds are concerned, the efl learners encounter a great amount of problems. The analysis of pronunciation variation is performed using.
Sounds lesson number that 40 thank 41 run 31 back 20 dad 22 gag 24 pack 19 tank 21 cap 23 hang 27 zoo sat 33 and34. The following sounds often cause problems for spanish speakers. Pronunciation problems for spanishspeaking learners of english. American english pronunciation for native spanish speakers. What are the most notorious pronunciation problems native. Linguistic difficulties spanish speakers face when. Letter v in spanish the letter v is pronounced the same as b, so dont be surprised if you heard boys when your hispanic friend meant voice. Make sure you can pronounce the difference in these pairs of words. Understanding pronunciation variations facing esl students. Volume 30, 20 27 stead, they tend to maintain the same length when articulating them in different words, such as ship 867p sheep and 86p ship.
Start by watching this video on the top areas of english pronunciation that many spanish speakers need to improve for clearer english. English phonetics and phonology for spanish speakers. As a matter of fact, many native speakers of english have problems with spelling correctly. Spanish pronunciation guide for beginning spanish speakers. Spanish speakers have no problem producing a hissing sound, so the secret is to have them make the word directly after that ssss and then practise reducing the length of that down to a short initial s. Im sorry for foreigners who have to learn all of this the hard way.
One of the main reasons for this is that many, many english words are not spelled as they are spoken. The study was expected to have problems with pronunciation of english vowels in both individual words and real communication. It describes four common phonetic distinctions that cause such speakers difficulties in english, including p versus b in a. While speaking english, arabic speakers of english try to unnecessarily emphasize consonants and add extra stress to the syllables. Common spanish mistakes english speakers make my daily.
This is the reason for one of the biggest pronunciation problems that spanish speaking learners confront, which is the fact that, unlike english, there is no distinction between long and short vowels in their language. Plenty of learners make the same pronunciation and, thus, spelling or orthography, mistakes. The 230 pronunciation worksheets here on draw inspiration from every topic imaginable from basic vocabulary and grammar to popular songs and movies. The students of spoken english language or any other spoken language face the problems in the pronunciation of the particular language. Correction of common english pronunciation mistakes made by learners with spanish as. But it has great sound files, and it will help you to speak.
So this study is discussing the same problem, but for the speakers. Factors affecting the acquisition of pronunciation. After all, many native speakers, or fluent nonnative speakers nnss, pronounce individual sounds differently from the norm, with no problems for intelligibility. Spanish pronunciation guide for beginning spanish speakers there are regional differences to consider when talking about the pronunciation of spanish words. Practice saying words beginning with s by emphasising the sss sound. Another common pointer youll read in a guide to spanish pronunciation is that the t and d sounds are softer or lighter than their english equivalents. Pronunciation problems for latinos this link includes playable audio of pronunciation. Now we will list some of the common pronunciation problems faced by arabic speakers of english. One of the most important differences between spanish and english is that the former has only five vowel sounds whereas the latter has more than fourteen. Top english pronunciation tips for spanish speakers. Theyll tell you that the accent is so straightforward. Pronunciation difficulties for students with l1 spanish.
After the video, read the article below for some ideas on how to start to improve these areas that are so important for speaking clearly in english. Pronunciation problems native arabic speakers have with. Pronunciation problems for spanishspeaking learners of. Perhaps the single biggest pronunciation problem for spanish speakers is that their language does not have a distinction. If you want to make a good impression when speaking spanish, here are seven common pronunciation mistakes english speakers make that you can avoid. Spanish students have difficulties recognizing the differences between short vowel and long vowel a case, 2012. But it has great sound files, and it will help you to speak more clearly. Instead, they only raise their tongue tip up towards the gum producing n. Spanish uses 5 vowel sound positions in pronunciation, gb english uses 12 vowel sound positions so this is a key area for spanish speakers to learn. If you listen to a native spanish speaker, youll realize that when they pronounce the d in words like todo or lado its more of a soft, barely noticeable stop.
Teaching english pronunciation to spanish speakers ijhssi. It doesnt matter if youre looking for a simple onpaper exercise, a lighthearted activity, or a highenergy game somewhere in our collection youll find exactly what. These pronunciation variations can degrade an automatic speech recognition systems performance on accented english. Pronunciation problems can be difficult to correct if students rely on their native arabic language rules for guidance. Another problem commonly ascribed to spanish efl learners pronunciation is the lack of distinction. English pronunciation for speakers of spanish from. English pronunciation issues specific to spanishspeaking.