CORRECT PRONUNCIATION MAKES A DIFFERENCE

There many people who find difficulty PRONOUNCING words correctly. The IELTS test takers must not forget that its one of the four criteria on which the examiners are testing you. Be careful; here pronunciation does not mean the accent; it means how accurately the word is being pronounced or said. This blog will focus on three main things, firstly, the individual word, the stress on the word and the sentence, which brings clarity of the meaning of the sentence.

Many students struggle with the specific sounds in the English language, the best way to overcome this difficulty is by identifying the sounds you have difficulties with and focus on the sounds that you have to produce to sound more naturally in English. The help can be taken from the interactive pronunciation charts and online dictionaries. Try to focus which part of the mouth is used to make that sound and also doing some tongue exercise. Rather than pronouncing the whole words together try to break the words and focus on the parts and then slowly join the whole word. This is an awesome practice that will help you memorize that word and improve its pronunciation. Let’s look at some words that are pronounced wrong in English and the correct way.

Quote: The correct pronunciation is kwo-te. It is often pronounced as coat.

Data: should be day-ta not daa-taa which is also usually heard in offices. Surprisingly people from the IT sector and database consultants also sometimes also mispronounce this word which is so fundamental to their work. Dengue: This disease is pronounced as Deng-ee (pronunciation of 'gee' as in geese). It is not Deng-goo. Dessert: It is pronounced dizz-urt, (pronunciation of u as in sun). You would order dessert at a restaurant. It sounds different from desert (with one s) which is the pronounced dez-ert (as in Arabian Desert). Bowl: It is pronounced bol (rhyming with pole). Not as ba-ool. Truth: It is pronounced true-th and not tru-th (long 'oo' not short 'u'). The same actually goes for the word tooth (it's not tu-th) Executive: Should be pronounced eggs-eck-uh-tiv, not exe-cute-tiv which is commonly heard Develop: The correct pronunciation is dih-vel-up, and not as day-vuh-lupp. Extending that to Pizza: The correct pronunciation is peed-zuh, (peed pronounced as in weed). And not pi-za.

Cabin: This word for a private office area is often heard mispronounced as kay-bin. It should be pronounced as Cab-in (cab as in taxicab) Wednesday: 'Wen's day' is the correct way of saying the name of this day (the D is usually silent). Opposite: Instead of uh-pose-it it should be pronounced awp-uh-zit. The emphasis is on the first syllable 'opp'. The same goes for the word 'opportunity' which is not up-port-unity but awp-urt-tune-ity Biology: Once again, the first syllable 'bi' gets emphasis. Where we usually say bio-logy, it is instead more proper to say bai-awe-lojy. Other 'ology' words are the same - geology is jee-awe-logy, cosmology is cos-maw-logy. Salon: It should be pronounced as sa-lawn, It is often pronounced as suh-loon which is incorrect. Police: The correct pronunciation is puh-leece. It is often mispronounced as pu-liss.