Clear English Pronunciation

Dick Smakman is a Lecturer at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He teaches and researches English language acquisition and sociolinguistics. He has taught English, Dutch, and sociolinguistics at various universities.

Clear English Pronunciation is focused on learners of English and their individual pronunciation issues in the process of communication. The book provides essential information concerning non-articulatory pronunciation skills, prosody, consonants and vowels, phoneme contrasts, and interlocutors` skills. The author urges speakers with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds to learn to understand each other and get along equally.Sofiya Mitsova, South West University "Neofit Rilski", Bulgaria Dick Smakman acknowledges that all L2 speakers are from somewhere and have their own specific trajectories. He convincingly shows that this is no problem because it suffices to work on international intelligibility. Clear English Pronunciation is a very practical resource that achieves this for English speakers around the world. Patrick Heinrich, Ca’Foscari University of Venice, ItalyClear English Pronunciation is a must-have resource for learners of English who want to improve their pronunciation to become comprehensible and to sound natural in different social settings. The textbook helps learners better understand the underlying principles of English pronunciation through many examples as well as plenty of opportunity for individualized practice.Natalia Edisherashvili, School XXI Century, GeorgiaClear English Pronunciation provides many examples that demonstrate what could go wrong in communication. The course seeks to create not just correct articulation, but confident and understandable pronunciation. The interactive companion website with recordings and expanded explanations supports students in practicing and finding their own pronunciation issues.Gergana Padareva-Ilieva, South-West University "Neofit Rilski", Bulgaria Although accent is a natural trait of diversity among speakers of world languages, it may complicate otherwise smooth cross-cultural communication involuntarily. This is a long-awaited book, instrumental in improving the pronunciation skills strongly needed for effective communication in English as a global lingua franca in the context of its vast regional variation.Viktoriya Zavyalova, Far Eastern Federal University, Russia

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsYour pronunciation before the coursePART A – SECOND-LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION2. Improving pronunciation3. Using the speech tract4. Using other pronunciation toolsPART B – COMBINING SOUNDS5. Intonation6. Vowel reduction7. Word stress8. Stressful words9. Pronunciation variation10. Sentence stress11. Silences12. Fortis and lenis endings13. Contraction and assimilationPART C – DIFFICULT CONSONANTS14. Pronouncing pea, tea, and key [p, t, k]15. Pronouncing teeth and teethe [θ, ð]16. Pronouncing veer, beer, and Wear [v, b, w]17. Pronouncing see and she [s, ʃ]18. Pronouncing veal and zeal [v, z]19. Choosing rhotacisation20. Pronouncing right and light [ɹ, l]21. Unpronounced consonants22. Consonant testsPART D – DIFFICULT VOWELS23. Pronouncing dark and Dirk [ɑː, ɜː]24. Pronouncing Dirk and dork [ɜː, ɔː]25. Pronouncing dork and Doke [ɔ:, oʊ]26. Pronouncing Doke and dock [oʊ, ɒ]27. Pronouncing dock and duck [ɒ, ʌ]28. Pronouncing look and Luke [ʊ, uː]29. Pronouncing lick and leek [ɪ, iː]30. Pronouncing marry and merry [æ, ɛ]31. Pronouncing merry and Mary [ɛ, ɛː]32. Avoiding vowel rhotacisation33. Avoiding vowel nasalisation34. Vowel testsYour pronunciation after the courseReferencesIndex