Pronunciation and listening comprehension

Some tips on learning how to pronounce foreign languages and on improving your listening comprehsion.

Why good pronunciation is important

Learning how to pronounce a foreign language like a native speaker is difficult but not impossible. The better your pronunciation, the better people will understand you and the easier you will find it to understand them.

Tuning your ears and practising listening comprehension

Before you start trying to speak a foreign language, spend some time tuning your ears to its sounds and rhythms. You can do this by listening to the language as much as possible via the radio, TV, movies and native speakers in your neighbourhood. There are online radio stations in a wide variety of languages.

When you first try listening to your chosen language, you'll understand only a little or nothing at all, other than perhaps the names of people and places and the odd word, unless you're learning a language closely related to your L1. You may even find it difficult to believe that what you're listening to is a real language that people are able to converse in. However if you continue to listen to your L2 as much as possible, you will gradually become familiar with the the sounds and rhythms of the language and start to be able to pick out words and phrases. Eventually you'll be able to understand most if not all of what you hear in your L2.

There are a number of things you try to help you understand radio and TV broadcasts:

• Rather than just listening or watching at random, find out what programmes are on and choose one that sounds interesting. In this way you will have an idea of what the programme is about.
• Set yourself goals, for example when listening to the news try to work out the main points, names, dates and times.
• Brush up relevant vocabulary before tuning in. For example if you're planning to watch a cooking programme, revise food words first
• Even if you can't understand very much at all, try to identify word and sentence boundaries
• If possible listen to the news in your L1 first, then when you listen to it in your L2 you'll already be aware of the mains stories.
• Don't try to listen to or watch too much in one go: if you're finding it a struggle, take a break and/or do something else.

Listening to songs in your L2 is another way to improve your listening comprehension, especially if you have the lyrics written out so that you can follow them as you listen.

Audio magazines

A great way to improve your listening comprehension and pronunciation is with the audio magazines produced by Champs-Elysées. These montly publications are available in French, German, Italian and Spanish and consist of an hour-long programme on CD or audio cassette covering a wide range of topics, such as politics, current affairs, sports, travel, film, and literature. The accompanying magazine includes a full transcript of the programme plus vocabulary and notes. Optional study supplements are also available.

You can find out more at: www.champs-elysees.com

Learning pronunciation

With your ears tuned to the sounds and rythmns of your L2, you'll find learning how to pronounce the language less difficult.

If your language course includes a recorded pronunciation guide and exercises, listen to them until you have internalized all the points, but don't try to learn everything in one go. Beware of pronunciation guides that compare the sounds of your L2 with your L1. This can be misleading as the sounds, particularly the vowels, are often different.

Alternatively or additionally you could try finding a native speaker to help you with pronunciation. Ask them to speak slowly and to enunciate each word clearly. Then try to mimic them. Pay attention to the shapes their lips make, and also to their posture and any gestures they make.

Pimsleur language courses are very good at teaching you pronunciation: when introducing new words they break them up and teach you how to pronounce each syllable. Rosetta Stone courses are also good for learning pronunciation: they include the facility to record your voice and to visually compare it with a native speaker's voice.

Once you've got to grips with the pronunciation of your L2, you need to learn how to map the sounds to the written form of the language. This is fairly straight forward for languages like Italian, Spanish and German, which have consistent and regular spelling. Other languages, such as English, French and Danish, present more of a challenge with their irregular and somewhat chaotic spelling. Learning a language written with a different writing system adds an extra level of difficulty.

Better pronunciation through song

If you enjoy singing, try learning some songs in the language you're learning. This is a fun way to improve your pronunciation and vocabulary. You could also try learning to recite poems and stories. Listening to songs in your L2 is an enjoyable way to improve your listening comprehension, especially if you have the lyrics written out so that you can follow them as you listen.

Phonetics and phonology

Learning a bit about phonetics and phonology will enable you to pronounce your L2 better. A good way to start is to learn the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which can be used to represent all the phonemes of human speech and is therefore a reliable guide to pronunciation.

If you take the time to familiarise yourself with the IPA symbols, the phonemes they represent and how to pronounce them, you'll find this knowledge invaluable in your language learning. Particularly because the IPA is used to indicate pronunciation in some dictionaries and language textbooks.

In some cases you may not be able to hear particular phonemes, but you can be sure that you're pronouncing them correctly if you have your tongue, lips and teeth in the necessary positions and if your breath is moving in the right direction.

There's a good online introduction to phonetics and the IPA at: http://www.unil.ch/ling/english/phonetique/table-eng.html

Accents

Human speech uses a total of over 800 different phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language. Babies can hear all possible phonemes but quickly develop a preference for the phonemes of their native language(s). Children tend to be very good mimics, an ability which enables them to learn foreign languages with a native accent. When learning foreign languages in later life, most people find it difficult to hear and pronounce phonemes not present in their native language. This is why most adult language learners have a foreign accent