PRONUNCIATION MISTAKES IN A DIAGNOSTIC PASSAGE

PRONUNCIATION MISTAKES IN A DIAGNOSTIC PASSAGE

Alejandro Cediel Giraldo

Clifford A Prator’s diagnostic passage

When a (I pronounce this article as /ɑ/. The good form is /eɪ/) student from another country (I pronounce /Kaʊtri/, The correct form is / ˈkʌntri/) comes (sometimes I omit the pronunciation of the /s/ at the end) to study in the United States, he has (sometimes I stopped here because It was difficult to pronounce both /h/ quickly) to find out for himself the answers (I pronounced always the semivowel /w/. The correct pronunciation is / ˈænsər /) to many questions, and he has many problems to think about.

Where should (sometimes I don’t pronounce good the phoneme /ʃ/) he live? (My Intonation in the questions was not quite similar to the audio)

Would it be better if he (Reading these words quickly was difficult to me. I had to read the question several times to pronounce the words correctly) looked for a private room off campus, or if he stayed in a dormitory?

Should he spend all of his time just studying?

Shouldn’t he try to take advantage of the many social and cultural (This word is difficult to me ['kʌltʃərəl] because sometimes I pronounce it similar as is pronounced in Spanish ['kulturəl]) activities which are offered?

At first it is not easy for him to be casual in dress, informal in manner, and confident in speech.

Little by little he learns what kind of clothing (/ ˈkləʊðɪŋ/ In some cases I pronounced the phoneme /t/ instead of /ð/) is usually worn here to be casually dressed for classes.

He also learns to choose the language and customs that are appropriate for informal situations.

Finally he begins to feel sure of himself.

But let me tell you, my friend, this long-awaited feeling doesn’t develop suddenly, does it?  (My tag question intonation sometimes doesn’t sound as the audio sounds. I think that I could be caused because I don’t use tag questions usually)

All of this takes will power (Usually I pronounce a semivowel in the middle of the word / ˈpawər /, the correct form is / ˈpaʊər /).

Listen my recordings of this diagnostic I found such quantity of problems in my pronunciation that I felt a little upset with myself. However that encourages me to practice a lot to improve my English pronunciation. I identified several problems in the following aspects:

-       Harmony of speech: It was difficult to me reading the text fluently in a normal velocity. At first I had to read it considerably slower than the guide audio in order to pronounce word by word correctly. After almost twenty repetitions, and when I had almost memorized the text, I reach an acceptable speed in the speech. Despite that, some mistakes were difficult to avoid, somehow because I wasn’t conscious of them. On the other hand, in some cases I was thinking so much about the correct pronunciation of every word while I was reading and that aspect produces a loss of harmony in the lecture, the lecture was not natural. In addition, when I read the passage aloud in front of my classmates that makes feel a little nervous and I lost the concentration as a consequence many mistakes were evidenced. Finally, I realized that sometimes I read without taking into account the meaning of the text trying to pronounce good each word.

-       Stops in lecture: When I was presenting the text to my phonetics teacher, after almost 30 repetitions, I had necessity of stopping in many parts of the lecture because some combinations of words were difficult to pronounce. Example, “Would it be better if he” The repetition of the syllable “be” and after the alveolar flapping[1] in the word better done in the guide audio were sounds difficult to emit.

-       Ability to identify phonemes[2]: Mostly, my mistakes were related to recognizing some phonemes in words. As you can see in the corrections, many of them are confusions between sounds influenced for Spanish phonemes. I have to be more critical in my learning process and I should try to look the transcription of confusing words.

-       Intonation in questions: In the first lectures my intonation in questions was really different to the guide audio intonation questions. I had to do a considerably effort to sound similar to the audio.

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[1] Phonological process found in many dialects of English, especially North American English and Australian English, by which either or both prevocalic (preceding a vowel) /t/ and /d/ surface as the alveolar tap [ɾ] after sonorants other than /ŋ/, /m/, and /l/. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar-flapping

[2] A phoneme is a basic element of a given language or dialect, from which words in that language or dialect are analyzed as being built up. The phoneme is defined by the International Phonetic Association as "the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme.