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Today, I'm going to show you the very best online dictionary to use to study English.
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and teach you how to pronounce any word in American English. english isn't phonetic.
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That means the letters don't correspond directly to sounds.
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I made a video where I went through all the pronunciations of OUGH.
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It's surprising how many there are and how different from each other they are.
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What's not surprising is that I often get emails from students asking how to pronounce something
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and I want to give you all the resources I can to figure out and learn how to pronounce
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any word in English like a native.
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First of all, when you use an online dictionary, you'll see that they'll try to help you with the pronunciation.
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Let's look up the word 'identify'.
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Dictionary.com tells me that this is how I sound pronounce it.
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Cambridge dictionary has completely different symbols.
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Oh, and they have two pronunciations.
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One for British English, and one for American English. That's good to know.
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I wonder which one was listed in Dictionary.com. It didn't say one way or another.
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Merriam Webster has yet another different set of sounds.
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Here's McMillan, it looks similar to the Cambridge dictionary.
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Both McMillan and Cambridge used IPA symbols.
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That is the International Phonetic Alphabet to show the pronunciation and this is what I recommend.
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It's more standard.
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I have a playlist to help you learn the symbols and sounds together.
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Click here on in the description below to see that playlist.
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There will be small differences.
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For example, Cambridge puts these little dots between syllables and McMillan doesn't.
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I like Cambridge the best because it gives both British and American English pronunciations.
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However, it uses this symbol instead of the IPA symbol for EH
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and it shows this symbol instead of the IPA symbol for the American R so it isn't perfect.
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None of them are. But Cambridge is probably the best.
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Once you know the IPA, you can figure out the pronunciation of any word
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when you're using a dictionary that uses IPA, sort of. Let's dig deeper.
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Online dictionaries also have audio clips for each word.
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Let's listen to some.
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Identify.
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That sounds a little robotic, doesn't it?
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Identify.
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Identify.
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I wouldn't recommend using this as your example of how to practice.
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What about Cambridge?
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Identify.
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It's a little hard to tell what he's doing with this T here. I'm definitely not hearing a True T.
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let's compare the British pronunciation.
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Identify.
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There, there's a clear True T.
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Identify.
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Identify.
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hard to tell what he's doing here. It's almost like I barely hear the T at all.
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Identify.
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Identify.
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It's almost like a flap.
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Identify.
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Identify.
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Okay, there's our British pronunciation again.
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So it doesn't say that that's the British English pronunciation but I know it is.
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But that could be confusing if you're a non-native speaker.
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You might not know if you're hearing British English or American English.
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Identify.
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Identify.
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Again, I'm not hearing a True T there.
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Identify.
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And I'm also not told if this is British English or American English.
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Identify.
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So they have the T written out in the pronunciation but I don't really hear it.
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Identify.
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Tt, tt, tt.
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Do you hear that sound?
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Identify.
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What's going on there?
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The pronunciation didn't match the IPA symbols and it didn't match the other online dictionaries.
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This is when another source with lots of real Americans speaking full sentences is important.
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Because dictionaries don't take into account some of the changes that Americans make.
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We do a lot with the letter T. We have a Stop T, a Flap T, a True T, and a Dropped T.
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But in the dictionary, they'll only ever just show one symbol, the symbol for the True T.
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A great next step is to go to Youglish.com.
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It's a collection f Youtube videos with subtitles and you can search for a particular word or phrase
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and then filter by American English.
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Let's listen to the word 'identify'.
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Identify. Identify. No T there.
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Identify that specific.
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Identify. Identify. No, there was no T there.
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You need to identify... Identify. Again, no T.
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Identify. Identify. No true T, the T is totally dropped.
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Identify. Identify.
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So her beginning vowel, a little different there. But again, there's no T sound at all, it's totally dropped.
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So we've listened to five examples so far and none of them had a True T.
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Even though when we looked them up in the dictionary,
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they all had written out in the sounds that there was a True T.
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Okay, so looking at the dictionary was a good first step
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if you know IPA. But it wasn't great for listening and repeating. Some of the audio sounded robotic,
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wasn't identified as American English or British English. Did you notice, I just used the word 'identify'?
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and I dropped the T too, didn't I? it's important to go to a source like Youglish.com
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where you can find examples of real Americans using the word you're studying in context.
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This helps you get a more natural pronunciation and you can also learn how to use the word
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by studying how native speakers use it in full sentences to express their ideas.
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One of the things that makes English so hard is figuring out how to pronounce something
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based on how it's written. I want you to know it's a challenge for us too.
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When I'm reading and I come across the word that's unfamiliar to me, I usually stop and look it up.
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So even Americans need to do this, need to look up the pronunciation.
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There's also the flipside when we hear a word, figuring out how to write it down, how to spell it, can be tricky.
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Native speakers of American English have a hard time with spelling too.
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I was playing charades with a group of friends once
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and we all had to write down something for someone to act out.
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So we all wrote something down on a piece of paper, and put it in a bowl.
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My friend wrote down 'Rachel scratching her eczema.'
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Because at that time, I was having a lot of skin issues and she wrote it like this: eggsema.
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Eggs, like the eggs we eat from a chicken. that just made me laugh so hard but it also made perfect sense.
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Eczema.
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One pronunciation is the EH as in Bed vowel, G and Z, just like the word 'eggs'.
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So when you're learning a new word, it might indeed be hard to figure out the pronunciation.
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But even when you know the sounds and you hear a native speaker, it can be hard to do it yourself.
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I want to show you one other trick that you can have to work on this. Slow down the videos on Youglish.
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In the YouTube player, come here to settings and then click speed and you can see you have lots of options.
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You're going to choose normal or something slower.
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Here, I've chosen 0.5 speed. That's half as fast as normal.
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Eczema. Eczema.
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So by hearing it slower, it helps me more easily identify what exactly she's doing
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with the sounds and I can imitate it myself slowly.
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Eczema. Eczema.
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So now you have the resources and the know-how to teach yourself the pronunciation of any word.
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The thing I love about Youglish is if you're looking for something that's not in the dictionary, l
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ike a business name, for example.
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There's a good chance you'll find examples of native speakers saying it on Youglish.
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You can also use Youglish for a whole phrase, not just a single word.
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I hope these resources help you train your best pronunciation.
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Keep checking back with me for more tips on how to improve
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your American English pronunciation with new videos every week.
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That's it and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.