English Pronunciation Problems? There Is Hope!

Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash

We all understand that pronunciation difficulties or weaknesses often are connected to a person’s native language. However, with the opportunity and privilege of working with students from almost every part of the world (for over three decades), I have been able to observe several common points of difficulty with English pronunciation for a majority of the learners that I have worked with.

Over the years I have collected loads of helpful tips, advice, and examples. By sharing articles here, I hope to help more learners of English that I ever could in-person.

The most common areas of difficulty will be my starting point for article topics — topics that are usually helpful for most non-native speakers of English.

A sneak peak of just a few soon-coming topics:

• Long-E vs. Short-i: Do you find it difficult to hear the difference between the vowel sounds of words such as “did” and “deed”? How about the pairs “sit-seat” or “itch-each”? And, do you know how to pronounce them correctly so that others know which word you are saying?
• Long-A vs. Short-e: Can you hear and/or correctly pronounce word pairs such as “taste-test”, “lace-less” or “gate-get”? I have some tips and insights that can help!
• The Sounds of “O”: Many…