{"id":55399,"date":"2016-11-16T15:03:18","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T07:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/?p=55399"},"modified":"2016-11-17T17:28:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T09:28:22","slug":"english-pronunciation-tough-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/archives\/55399","title":{"rendered":"English Pronunciation is Tough Stuff: Here&#8217;s 4 Tips to Get it Right"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With so many different spellings for the same sound (or with similar spellings for totally different sounds), English pronunciation\u00a0couldn\u2019t be harder.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-55400\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/vt-blog\/www\/2016\/10\/11587b84-blog-english-pronunciation-4-tips-to-get-it-right.png\" alt=\"English Pronunciation: 4 Tips to Get it Right\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/11587b84-blog-english-pronunciation-4-tips-to-get-it-right.png 560w, https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/11587b84-blog-english-pronunciation-4-tips-to-get-it-right-300x169.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">English pronunciation can be really confusing sometimes. Take the expression \u201ctough stuff\u201d for instance: both words end with the \u201cF\u201d sound, but with totally different spellings. Likewise, there are words that are spelled similarly, but sound completely different \u2014 like \u201cbreak\u201d and \u201cstreak\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A poem of an unknown author, titled \u201cEnglish is Tough Stuff\u201d, has been circling the Web for years and it never ceases to amaze those who stumble upon it for the first time. If you have never read it before, here\u2019s a captioned video of that funny little text for you:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/embed\/14475\" width=\"560\" height=\"530\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: left;\"><b>Finding Out\u00a0the Correct English Pronunciation<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As is the case with any language, we usually learn the pronunciation of English words by hearing (and repeating) them. But sometimes you may come across something that you have never heard of before: maybe you\u2019re reading something and there\u2019s this one word that you don\u2019t really know how to pronounce.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Going back to one of the examples we mentioned above, maybe you encounter the word \u2018streak\u2019 for the first time; a quick look in the dictionary shows that it means, among other things, a \u201cperiod of repeated success or failure\u201d. OK, great. But is it pronounced like \u2018break\u2019 or like \u2018speak\u2019? Surprisingly, \u2018streak\u2019 rhymes with \u2018speak\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So how do we know how to pronounce a word we have never heard before? Here are our top tips to getting it right each time:<\/span><br \/>\n<b style=\"line-height: 1.5;\"><\/b><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><b style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">1. Ask a native speaker<\/b><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the most obvious one: when in doubt, ask a native speaker!<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><b style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">2. Check the dictionary<\/b><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Well, many of us don\u2019t have 24\/7 access to an English native speaker to clear our doubts, so we often need to resort to other tactics \u2014 like using a dictionary, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"giphy-embed\" src=\"\/\/giphy.com\/embed\/p4qWWYF5dMM9y\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\">(<a href=\"https:\/\/giphy.com\/gifs\/cat-book-reading-p4qWWYF5dMM9y\">via GIPHY<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many printed dictionaries will either follow an international standard called the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">International Phonetic Alphabet<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (IPA) or have their own pronunciation guide; both can help you figure out the sounds by comparing them to commonly used words.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In case you are not sure what we are talking about, this is what the phonetic transcription of the word <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">pronunciation<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> looks like if we use the IPA symbols:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-55403\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/vt-blog\/www\/2016\/10\/dfedb146-captura-de-tela-de-2016-10-27-17-14-12.png\" alt=\"IPA symbols phonetic transcription\" width=\"390\" height=\"49\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/dfedb146-captura-de-tela-de-2016-10-27-17-14-12.png 390w, https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/dfedb146-captura-de-tela-de-2016-10-27-17-14-12-300x38.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 390px) 100vw, 390px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Source: Google)<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left; padding-left: 30px;\"><b style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">3. Search Google and other online resources<\/b><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you google any word followed by the word \u201cmeaning<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, you\u2019ll likely get a search result with not just the meaning of the word, but also two cool features to help you out: the IPA symbols and a recorded sound clip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-55404\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/vt-blog\/www\/2016\/10\/bb2e944a-captura-de-tela-de-2016-10-27-17-16-22.png\" alt=\"streak english pronunciation meaning\" width=\"477\" height=\"463\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/bb2e944a-captura-de-tela-de-2016-10-27-17-16-22.png 477w, https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/bb2e944a-captura-de-tela-de-2016-10-27-17-16-22-300x291.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 477px) 100vw, 477px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Source: Google) <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can click on the loudspeaker icon to listen to the recorded sound clip; then, there will be no doubt about the pronunciation of that word. And the coolest part is this listening feature is also available on the Google Translate app!<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><b style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">4. Listen more!<\/b><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It should come as no surprise that the more you listen, the more words you\u2019ll add to your vocabulary. As mentioned before, English pronunciation is learnt by hearing new words and repeating them. And what\u2019s the best way to listen to more and more English-speaking people? Log on to <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.voicetube.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">VoiceTube<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and watch a couple new videos every day!<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With so many different spellings for the same sound (or with similar spellings for totally different sounds), English pronunciation\u00a0couldn\u2019t be harder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1384],"tags":[1389,343,840,1058],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>English Pronunciation is Tough Stuff: Here&#039;s 4 Tips to Get it Right - VoiceTube<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With so many different spellings for the same sound (or with similar spellings for totally different sounds), English pronunciation couldn\u2019t be harder.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/archives\/55399\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"English Pronunciation is Tough Stuff: Here&#039;s 4 Tips to Get it Right - VoiceTube\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With so many different spellings for the same sound (or with similar spellings for totally different sounds), English pronunciation couldn\u2019t be harder.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/archives\/55399\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"VoiceTube\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-16T07:03:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-11-17T09:28:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/11587b84-blog-english-pronunciation-4-tips-to-get-it-right.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"315\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"VoiceTube\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.voicetube.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"VoiceTube\",\"description\":\"Articles On Language Learning &amp; 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