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Most often, phonetics in English is given quite a bit of time. Having gone through some basic points, many more continue to focus on grammar and vocabulary in order to understand the system of the language as a whole. But if you still want to get rid of your accent, and there is no opportunity to spend a couple of months in an English-speaking country, catch a small selection of tips on how to do this (there will be links to useful resources, but with the interface from the 90s).

British or American?

This is a fairly common problem for many schools and students. It often happens that in one course mix both British and American types of pronunciation. Therefore, you should immediately choose the textbooks you need and the teacher with the appropriate accent.

Work on the correct articulation.

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Try to follow how your lips and tongue move during the pronunciation of words and compare with examples of native speakers. On the Internet you can find good and clear instructions: garycmartin.com , soundsofenglish.org .

Learn to separate English words into syllables

In English, the number of syllables depends on the spoken sounds, not the written letters. Therefore, it is important to be able to focus on them. Or just use a special service for this.

Practice reading transcription

If you study with a teacher, ask him or her to give such tasks, where whole words, phrases and even texts are written with the help of transcription or their writing should be compared with transcription. It is advisable to give this practice at least 20-30 minutes once a week, especially at the initial level of language learning. By the way, for such purposes there are many useful sites: agendaweb.org , antimoon.com , thespruce.com , cambridge.org .

Continue learning phonetics after mastering the basic rules.

Make sure that the teaching materials that you will be involved in and after the Starter and Elementary levels will include work on pronunciation, and the teacher will not skip these sections of the textbook.

Work as much as you can with audio and video content.

Pronunciation skills are shaped better by illustrative examples and imitation. Therefore, try to repeat more often the heroes of your favorite series, speaker or singer. For this there are special sites: ptetutorials.com , pteacademicexam.com , pteexampreparation.com , ptelab.com .

Do not be afraid to speak out loud

Continuing the previous advice, try as often as possible to speak English loudly and distinctly, to get used to your pronunciation. If this is done too rarely, even correctly pronounced phrases will seem to you to be incorrect and strange. You can even record yourself on a voice recorder to sort out your mistakes in more detail and try to correct them.

Sort entertainment content in English

Try to listen only to British or American songs, watch videos with the appropriate emphasis, so that it is always in the right language environment for you. For example, there is a good playlist for practicing the British pronunciation , as well as for the American .

Gradually increase the load when working with content

It is worth starting small - choose the most simple audio and video. As soon as you feel that it becomes easy for you to listen or watch, move to a higher level. For example, first the basic phonetics lessons with explanations in their native language (perhaps, you should first pay attention to the video for children, they are very clear and simple), then short fragments of TV series and songs for up to 3-5 minutes, then longer videos and audio, full TV series, movies.

Practice with other people.

Conversation clubs are a convenient format to understand how good your pronunciation is, after all, you will have to communicate with the teacher (better carrier) and with other Russian-speaking members of the club. This is also a motivational moment, because you can make sure that other people also make mistakes (speakers also), but continue to communicate in English. And if you are confused by communication in a group, you can search for a partner to communicate in a special social network howdoyou.do or similar solutions.

We hope that these simple steps will help you improve your pronunciation at least to the level comfortable for you. And what are you doing to improve your pronunciation?

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