{"id":221,"date":"2017-01-21T10:27:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T09:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-232648-741634.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=221"},"modified":"2017-01-21T10:27:05","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T09:27:05","slug":"english-pronunciation-and-accent-reduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/english-pronunciation-and-accent-reduction\/","title":{"rendered":"English Pronunciation And Accent Reduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>We also have a large collection of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/open\/Video,Pronunciation.htm\">pronunciation videos<\/a>&nbsp;.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Try clicking one of the play buttons below to see how it works:<\/h2>\n\n\n<p><code>liked&nbsp;&nbsp;disturbed&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n<p><code>performed&nbsp;&nbsp;exposed&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n<p>The native English speakers in these lessons are a mixture of American and UK accents. You can&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/british-and-american-accents.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">learn about the differences between American and British accents<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve also got some great diagrams to make it clear what shape your mouth should make and where your tongue should be, as in this example:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.englishforums.com\/image:\/sitefs\/perm\/pi\/3\/9\/r\/0\/z\/401.100.0_f1.png\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption> These images will help you understand the shapes your mouth should make.<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>These images will help you understand the shapes your mouth should make.<\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/non-native-sounds.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 1 &#8211; Many Sounds In English Are Not In Your Native Language.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>For example, a lot of English as a Second Language (ESL) students struggle to pronounce the &#8220;th&#8221; sound (as in &#8220;<strong>th<\/strong>ing&#8217;) or the the &#8216;r&#8217; sound (as in &#8220;rent&#8217;) because these sounds are not present in their native language. It&#8217;s time for you to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/non-native-sounds.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">get some help with pronouncing these common English sounds.<\/a><br \/><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/combinations-of-sounds.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 2 &#8211; Some combinations of sounds can be hard to pronounce.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Usually it&#8217;s pretty easy to pronounce a single consonant such as &#8220;<strong>b<\/strong>&#8221; &#8220;<strong>k<\/strong>&#8221; or &#8220;<strong>f<\/strong>&#8220;, but what if the consonants are grouped together? These are &#8220;consonant clusters&#8221;. A &#8220;<strong>d<\/strong>&#8221; and an &#8220;<strong>s<\/strong>&#8221; might be easy on their own, but how about together such as in &#8220;Da<strong>ds<\/strong>&#8220;. We&#8217;ll help you&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/combinations-of-sounds.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">learn how to pronounce consonant clusters<\/a><br \/><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/syllable-structure.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 3 &#8211; Syllable Structure Can Vary A Lot.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>In many languages syllable structure is nice and regular. Not so with English. We like to keep things interesting by having lots of alternatives. You might get lucky and get: Consonant Vowel Consonant Vowel such as in &#8220;<strong>yo-yo<\/strong>&#8220;, but you can also have Consonant Vowel&nbsp;<strong>Consonant Consonant<\/strong>&nbsp;Vowel Consonant as in &#8220;bed bug&#8221; Do you find yourself wanting to add an extra vowel on the end of &#8220;bug&#8221;? This lesson will&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/syllable-structure.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">help you with your English syllable structure<\/a><br \/><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/pronunciation.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 4 &#8211; Words Are Not Always Pronounced The Way They Are Spelt.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>In this lesson you&#8217;ll learn some handy rules to help you avoid getting tricked by English spelling. If you want to learn when a &#8220;<strong>c<\/strong>&#8221; is hard and when it&#8217;s soft, or when &#8220;<strong>wh<\/strong>&#8221; sounds like a &#8220;<strong>w<\/strong>&#8221; and when it tries to be tricky and sound like and an &#8220;<strong>h<\/strong>&#8221; then this [[Pronunciation|lesson on spelling and pronunciation is for you.<br \/><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/accents.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 5 &#8211; It&#8217;s Important To Stress The Correct Syllable In A Word.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Stressing the wrong syllable in a word can make the word completely unrecognizable to the native English speaker who you are trying to chat to. Learn&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/accents.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">how to stress the right syllable by using pitch, length, loudness and tongue position<\/a><br \/><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/pitch-and-stress.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 6 &#8211; Pitch And Loudness Change The Meaning Of Sentences.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Some languages use different tones to say different words. People don&#8217;t think of English as being a tonal language, but get the tone wrong and everything you say will sound like a question, or you will sound uninterested or seem rude. We&#8217;ve put together a few&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/pitch-and-stress.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tips to get you started with learning how tones are used in English.<\/a><br \/><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/changing-pronunciation-in-sentences.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 7 &#8211; Words Change Their Pronunciation When In A Sentence.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Have you ever wondered what a &#8220;schwa&#8221; is? A quick lesson that teaches you this and more about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/changing-pronunciation-in-sentences.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">how words are pronounced differently when they are in a sentence.<\/a><br \/><\/p>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/british-and-american-accents.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lesson 8 &#8211; American and British Accents Are Different.<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>American&#8217;s like to say that they speak &#8220;American&#8221; rather than &#8220;English&#8221;. Perhaps that started on Independence Day? In this extra special final lesson we have 130 audio examples so you can&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforums.com\/content\/promo\/british-and-american-accents.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hear the difference between American and English accents<\/a>&nbsp;for yourself. You&#8217;ve found the best stuff now!\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We also have a large collection of&nbsp;pronunciation videos&nbsp;. Try clicking one of the play buttons below to see how it works: liked&nbsp;&nbsp;disturbed&nbsp;&nbsp; performed&nbsp;&nbsp;exposed&nbsp;&nbsp; The native &#8230; <a title=\"English Pronunciation And Accent Reduction\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/english-pronunciation-and-accent-reduction\/\" aria-label=\"More on English Pronunciation And Accent Reduction\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[300,301],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.englishforward.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}