Tongue Twisters – Practise English Pronunciation
In today’s episode I share a fun way to practise pronunciation. I also introduce you to more words that are commonly mispronounced by English learners, for example breakfast! Enjoy :)
Tongue twisters mentioned in today’s episode
Tongue Twister 1:
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Tongue Twister 2:
She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are seashells for sure.
Transcript
Greetings my padawans, you are listening to the English Made Simple show, this is episode #93 – noventa y tres.
….and we are back to another episode of the English Made Simple show, today’s Short and Sweet episode is brought to you by “me, myself and I”. In other words, just me. And who am I? Funny you should ask, my name is Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net.
Welcome to the English Made Simple show, to my regular listeners, welcome for the 93rd time and if you are a newbie or new to the show, Welcome to you as well: What took you so long? That’s what I wanna know.
Guys and gals, you know how much I love to talk so let’s not waste any more of our precious time and let’s get crackin!
Let’s get this party started.
So, English pronunciation – my favourite topic, I love it, love it a lot….No, I don’t. I am being sarcastic.
Ok, so I am not going to lie to you amigos, I also have trouble pronouncing some words in English, the words that I am not accustomed to, the words I am not used to pronouncing on a regular basis…you know what? This is normal. Ce’st la vie. This is life.
Even the native speakers don’t know how to pronounce every word in the English language. And for that reason you shouldn’t feel bad about your pronunciation. You just need more practise. That’s it. Simple.
And today, I will share something that will really help you with English pronunciation.
And as I mentioned in my last episode, I’d like to share a few more examples of the words that I’d like you to practise, when you’re saying them out loud. Or when you are saying them aloud. I want you to pay special attention to the pronunciation.
By the way, the word aloud means the same as “out loud” – which is two words– en voz alta. In Spanish.
So the first word that I am going to share with you today is a word that you will be using every day.
The word is:
Breakfast – It’s not pronounced as brefas or Break-fast it’s simply Brekf’st. Please pronounce the last letter T.
Ok?? Cool.
Omg, I had such a crazy day today, I feel so exhausted.
Exhausted – new word for you amigos or at least for most of you this is a new word.
Synonyms for exhausted are tired, to feel very tired, drained, fatigued, to have no energy. We spell it as E X H A U S T E D (d for dog) and we pronounce it as Exhausted (igzostid).
We don’t say it as eks-hasted.
Ha, it’s almost exhausting just to spell this word.
Moving right along. Next word amigos.
Quite often I hear people mispronounce the word OFTEN.
The word Often has a silent T and it’s pronounced as OF’N. And it’s spelt as O F T E N.
Ok, ok, I know what you are going to say now…oh but, but Milena how come my friend John he says OfTen, I heard him say ofTen before. You know what, your friend John is probably 10 years old and he probably hasn’t finished high school yet.
Amigos, to be honest, I’ve heard native speakers say ofTEN, I’ve heard them say this before, however, if you want to be proper, as is the case in British English it should be pronounced as Of’n. “T” is silent.
And if you happen to say OFTEN, I will forgive you. But at least I wanted you to know the real pronunciation.
Righto amigos, you know what I wanna do now? I wanna play a game. I want to play a game with you.
Are you ready? We are going to practise something called: Tongue Twisters or in Spanish this is known as Trabalenguas.
I think Tongue Twisters are an excellent way for us to practise pronunciation. I want to focus on pronouncing sounds “Ch and Sh”
I only have 2 tongue-twisters to share and I will say them slowly for now, but I want you to try and repeat after me. Then I will share them in the Facebook group so you can practise them on your own, when you are at home by yourselves.
I also recommend for you guys to check out the transcriptions, they will be available in a couple of day after this episode goes live, alrighty, awesome!
Are you ready, here we go!
The first tongue twister goes like this:
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Ok… this is hard!
Ok next one, the next tongue twister is going to help you with pronouncing the sound SH, that’s spelt with S H, it’s going to help you with S and SH. Ok, here we go!
She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are seashells for sure.
(I’ll try one more time)
Wow my goodness! This game becomes more fun and more entertaining over a couple of beers or even wine, whichever you prefer.
And it’s more fun to say it as quickly as possible, as fast as you can ok?
The point of these particular tongue twisters that I am sharing with you, is to improve your pronunciation of sounds CH and SH.
Good luck amigos!
Wow that was so difficult, I really struggled with the Seashells one, that one was a real tongue-twister for me.
Well this will keep you busy for now, until next time muchachos y muchachas. Have a great rest of the week and I shall be in touch next week. Hasta la próxima!