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HUH?!  And here's a funny example of overkill on pronunciation instructions: In my nearly 3 decades of experience teaching English in Japan (20 years at the university level), I've found that all this high-level academic talk serves only to greatly confuse our students and impedes their actual learning of the language. Through the years I've observed intimate details of the major pronunciation problem areas that plague my Japanese learners of English, many of which stem back to the way English was taught in their junior high and high school days, including use of the Japanese syllabary katakana to teach English pronunciation. Thus, in the following American English mini-course I have chosen to focus only on 4 of the most common and troublesome pronunciation problems that my students have struggled with through the years. And linguists and phonetics purists are certain to shun my approach, but I've intentionally simplified the exercises to aid the learning process. Here is our game plan:
I'd recommend studying just one lesson per day to give yourself time to completely absorb and master the sounds in each lesson before moving on. But if you wish, and you have the time, there's no reason why you can't complete the whole mini-course in less than an hour, as each of the 13 videos are less than 90 seconds. Either way, I hope you enjoy yourself! Okay, let's get started. Good luck! Course introEnglish Pronunciation Mini-Course Intro (click link above to view a larger-size video on separate page) Lesson 1: TH/S soundsMaking the English TH sound is not rocket science. Search for "TH pronunciation" at YouTube and you'll get dizzy with all the over-the-top, WAY too detailed and difficult instructions. Those teachers are well-intentioned, but their techniques won't work with most Japanese learners, at least not from a video. Just simply touch your tongue to your top teeth. That's ALL! You can do it. Like this:  Making the TH sound (photo credit: speechbuddy.com) But it IS important that you learn the difference between the TH and S sounds, or you might put people's lives in danger, as in this funny video of a German Coast Guard trainee: TH/S sounds speaking practiceIn this video the teacher will first read a TH word from the left column along with its similar sounding S word in the right column. Please repeat the word pairs after the teacher for your pronunciation practice. Remember to touch your tongue to your top teeth for the TH sound.Ok, very good. Please replay this video as necessary until you feel comfortable correctly pronouncing the TH and S sounds. And now on to the TH/S sounds listening practice. 頑張ってください (Gambatte)! TH/S sounds listening practiceNow we will give you some listening practice with the TH/S sounds. The teacher will now read 10 words from either the left column or the right column. Please write down your answers on a piece of paper. He will say each word twice.Finished? Ok, you can now check your answers by clicking below on the “Show/Hide answers” link, which will reveal the 10 words which the teacher just said. If you got more than 3 or 4 answers wrong, you might want to do this listening exercise again for more practice. Show/Hide answers |
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