Session One1. Consonant R2. Consonant WHi, I’m your instructor Paul Gruber and welcome to the Pronunciation Workshops---First Training Session.I am very excited that you have taken this first step to improve your English pronunciation and I do hope that you would enjoy this program and receive great benefits from it. Before we begin I wanna make sure that you have downloaded and printed out the training manual which accompanies this course. If you have not yet done so, please do it soon because you’ll definitely need it.Now you may be wondering how is it that I am going to help you change the way you speak. Well, basically, when you learned English as a second language, you kept many of the sounds and speech rules from your first language and you were continuing to use them when you speak English. This is what gives you an accent. Y ou were using the sounds and speech rules from your native language instead of the sounds and speech rules of English. And you know why? Well, because when you learned English, nobody ever showed you what the sounds and speech rules of English were until now.That’s why I’m coming . Because I am going to show you and train you on how to use these sounds and speech rules correctly. Knowing in using these rules will help you reduce or possibly even eliminate your accent. Now throughout the program you’re often going to see me point to my mouth to show you how to produce a particular sound. I want you to pay close attention and try to copy exactly what it is I am doing. I would be showing you how to correctly form new sounds by changing the position of your tongue or changing the shape of your lips. These small changes are going to make very big changes in your speech. We’re going to practising and I recommend that you use the training manual and try to practise often. When you practise, I recommend that you start out speaking slowly out loud in a strong voice while exaggerating all the mouth movements. What would you be doing is retraining the muscles of your mouth in your tongue to move in new ways, which will produce a new pronunciation patterns. These new speech patterns will slowly and eventually involve into your own spontaneous fast speech, but it is important that you start out going very slow. If you can pronunce words and sentences correctly speaking slowly, well, then you’ll have no problem in saying them fast.I believe practising is important, but I do not believe it’s the only key towards success. Being aware of your errors. That’ s the key. Being aware and also recognizing mistakes when you hear them will probably be the most important factors towards your improvement. Another thing I’d like you to keep in mind and I’m sure you may have noticed this already is that when most Americans speak you will notice that we seem to open our mouth a lot and there is a great amount of mouth movements. Watch my mouth when I say something like “Wow, was there really raining on Wednesday!” Did you see how my mouth seemed tomove? It wasn’t with my lips flat. It wasn’t “Wow, was there really raining on Wednesday.” There was a lot of movements. My mouth opened wide, but also my whole mouth moved forward. Now I find many foreign speakers, maybe because of their language characteristics, they don’t move their mouths much. There is very little facial movement. Because of this, to an American listener, the words often sound mumble, making it very very difficult for an American listener to understand what it is you said. One way to be better understood immediately is to become more aware of your speech and to really start opening and moving your mouth.I’d like to try to observe what I’m talking about. When you speak to native-borned Americans or watch TV or movies, notice how when Americans speak, generally our mouths really open big and our lips come forward. These movements have a lot to do with the sound of American English.I also want to add that I’ll often be asking you to repeat words and sentences on these videos. Try to think as if we were both sitting in the same room and I am directly right in front of you. Listen carefully to the words and sounds that I give you. Listen carefully to my pronunciation and watch my mouth, then repeat the words back to me in your own voice with the techniques that I’m showing you as clearly as you can. Now at first you may feel a bit of foolish talking to your computer screen, but really you shouldn’t. Make believe you’re speaking directly to me. Y ou’ll find this will to be extremely helpful and effective.During the course of this program, I will begin by addressing consonant sounds and then later on we’ll work with vowel sounds. Now vowel sounds, as you know, are A E I O and U, like ahh, ohh, eee, ehh, ihh and ooo. And consonant sounds are basically all the other letters’ sounds, like b, ch, s, t, f, g, sh, w and of course, there are many many more sounds.The consonants that we are going to cover in this first session are the consonant R and the consonant W. Ok, are you ready? Here we go. Let’s get started. Let’s start with the American R.R’s are everywhere. They’re probably the most commonly occurring consonant sound in English. One reason for this is that R’s affect vowel sounds, especially when an R falls at the end of word or after a vowel sound as in the word CAR, or the word AIR, or the word TURN.After working with so many non-native English speakers from around the world, I believe the R sound is one of the main causes for being misunderstood in American English. Therefore, this is why I’ve chosen to start out with this sound. Now when some languages, like our speaking Spanish, the R is produced by bringing the tongue forward in the front of the mouth behind the upper teeth and rolling or trilling the tongue~, like that. Now when some other languages, like German and French, the R is produced in the back of the throat, but this is not how we produce an R sound in the United States. In American English, in order to say a clear R sound, two distinct things hafta(have to) happen. The first thing is that our mouth and lips come tightly forward as if you would be saying the OO sound. Do this with me, say OO and make sure you bringing your lips all the way forward. Say OO. That’s it. Y ou see how your lips are forward? That’s what you wanna do. This is the position your mouth should be in when you producing an American R, like that, and I’ll bet you knowwhenever I told you that. Now, the second thing is that your tongue moves back in your mouth. It doesn’t come forward. It’s pulled back. This is probably the opposite of what you’re doing right now. So, for example, in the word Rock, notice how my lips are coming forward and my tongue moves back in my mouth and I push out the R sound. Watch this: RRRock. Do with me and exaggerate the R: RRRock. Watch with my head turn:RRRock. Y ou see that? See how the whole bottom of my face came forward. Don’t be afraid to do this. This forward mouth movement is what is going to give you an American R sound. It’s not~ and it’s not Rock with your lips flat. Y our whole mouth really hasta( has to ) come forward. Now latter I recommend that you practise doing this in front of a mirror while watching your mouth. Really push out the R and remember to pull your tongue back. Now one way of checking if you’re doing this correctly with your tongue is by actually putting your finger around an inch into your mouth while saying an R sound. Watch this, RRRock, like that.Y ou should be able to take the tip of your finger and feel the tip of your tongue. If you do these two simple things---bringing your mouth forward and pulling your tongue back. I’m telling you your speech’s going to be clear and you’re going to sound so much better.Ok, we’ re going to start out with R’s at the beginning of words. Here we go. Repeat after me.RockRipReachRoadRainRichRomeRaiseRobeRiceVery good. Now repeat this sentence.The round rooste r rushed into the wrong road.Very good. Now pronuncing R’s like this may feel a little weird to you, but if you notice this is how most Americans talk.Ok. Now let’s do R’s at the end of words or after a vowel. When a foreign speaker produces R which at the end of word of follows a vowel, it’s usually very weak---gets not really heard and leaves the word opener unfinished, like in the word CAR. Now you may say CAR ending with the A vowel. But it’ s not CAR. It’s CAR/r/. Y our tongue hasta pull back. CAR. And also your lips close a little bit in the front. The R needs to be very strong and you need to close the word. CAR. Let’s practise these words. Repeat after me.CarFarStarDoorBearFourAirYear( now has a high vowel sound EE.Year.)TurnPoorVery good. Ok. Now let’s discuss R’s in the middle of words.In the word Very, for example, which is a frequently used word in English. The R occurs in the middle of the word. It’s not a D sound. The word is not Vedi, or Vehi, it’s Very. Make sure that the R sound is strong and your lips are coming forward. Your tongue is back and you push out the R: Very, like that. Practise these sentences with me nice and slow. He is Very Very nice, like that. See how my lips are coming all the way forward? Next one. She is Very Very tall. Here are some more practice words with R in the middle. Repeat after me. DirectionArrangeEraseCorrectMarryGarageOriginalHurryZeroMarineBerryOperationCaringArriveEveryoneOk. Very good. Now, R’s are often combined with other consonants and form what we call R Blends. It is important to understand that the R sound is the stronggest sound of the blend and your lips often come forward before you even say the word. And example of this is the word Grape. Now notice how my mouth comes forward before I even say the word. Grape. Did you see that? And notice in the word Grape the R sound is strongger and you even hear it more than the G sound. Grape. Here are some practice words with R Blends. First at the beginning of words. Here we go.TrainingTrustTripGreatTropicalBringPrintPresidentProductCrackerCrawlBreakOk. Now in the middle of words.SubtractWaitressNutritionAustraliaIntroduceCompressOppressionBetrayVery good. Ok now let’s practise R sounds in sentences. These sentences are filled with R’s. Keep the R sound strong. Don’t forget to bring your mouth forward and pull your tongue back. Say these sentences with me. Here we go.The story he read on the radio was incorrect.Her career in the law firm is permanent.Richard and Brooke took a ride in their brand new Range Rover truck.Everyone will respect the Royal Family when they arrive at the airport.(Be shorter close to the word Air. It’s not airport. It’s Air, Airport, like that with strong R sound.)The trip to the Rocky Mountains will be rescheduled on Friday.Very good. Ok now let’s talk about W sounds. W sounds are very similar to R sounds. The major thing to keep in mind is that in English when you see a W, it always has a W sound. Like in the word What. Again notice how my mouth moves forward. One way to make sure you were doing this correctly is to first say oooo with your whole mouth forward, oooo, like that, and then, open and close your lips to make the W sound, like this, ooooWaWaWa. That’s how you produce a W. Wa, like that. It’s never a V sound, /v/,or you’re like bitingdown on your lower lip, never. We’ll be going over V sounds in the fourth session. The reason I mention this is because many foreign speakers, especially the German speakers say, for example, Vhat with V for the word What. Instead of saying “What will we do?”, which is correct. They may say “Vhat vill ve do?” And that is not right and many people may not understand you. Bring your mouth forward on those W words. What will we do. Say with me. What will we do. Very good.Now as I said the W and the R are similar, both of them are made with your mouth in the forward position and your tongue pulled back. Your mouth should be a little bit tighter when you’re saying an R. Listen to the similarities and differences between these R and W words. Rick – WickRight – WhiteIt’s not Vhite with V. It’s White with W.Very good. Also be aware that the W sound occurs in some words beginning with the letter O, like in the words: One, Once. You might not be aware of this. Practise the W words with me. We’ll start out with W at the beginning of words. Don’t forget to bring your mouth forward at the beginning of each word.WhyWhichWhenWhatWipeWishWeightWingVery good. Ok now W in the middle of words.AlwaysAwayBewareAwakeSomeoneRewindHalloweenHollywoodNow practise these W sentences.The wind from the west was very wet. (Remember Very starts with the V sound followed by a strong R. --Was very wet. Very good.)We woke up and washed the white washcloth.We waited for the waitress to give us water.We had a wonderful time in Washington and Wisconsin.Very good. Now while we are talking the W sounds, I’d like to mention Q sounds. How are Q sounds related? Well, Q sounds are made with the K/k /sound and the W sound/w/ put together. You may have known that. So, for example, the word Quick is pronunced with the K and the strong W sound. KWICK, like that. Repeat some of these words beginning with the Q sound.QuestionQuietQueenQualifyQuitQuebecQuiltAnd also in the CH word ChoirVery good. Ok, here now is a paragraph which contains many R and W sounds. Y ou may wanna practise reading this paragraph a few times . Notice how my lips come forward and all my Rs and Ws. Try to do the same thing and don’t forget. Do not roll your R’~. Don’t do that. Here we go.Ray was born in Russia. He dreamed of building the perfect roller coaster at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He had a friend named Fred who lived in Norway. Fred’s profession was designing railroad tracks and his career involved traveling all around the world. Ray thought it would be perfect if Fred designed his roller coaster ride. Fred was creative, brilliant and worked well with railroad tracks. He would be the perfect engineer for the project. The ride took two years to construct and was painted red and white. Everyone really wanted to ride the brand-new roller coaster.Very good. Now if you strongly push out those Rs and Ws when you practise eventually your Rs and W sounds are going to be clear and your speech will be much easier to understand.If you have the time watch the session again and practise your pronunciation along with me, then take out your training manual and practise on your own. All the word lists and reading passages that are on these videos are in the munual as well. I hope you enjoy our first session together. Fell free to watch this session again. I’m Paul Gruber with the Pronunciation Workshop and I’ll see you next time.Session Two1. Voicing2. Consonant pairs3. Consonant S4. Consonant Z VoicingHi, welcome back. Again my name is Paul Gruber and this is the Pronunciation Workshops---Second Session. I hope things have been going well since we last met. I would like to just mention again there are literarlly hundreds of languages around the world and every language has its own set of characteristics. What I’ ve done in this program is to address the most significant pronunciation errors made by most foreign speakers that you may find that not every lesson pertains to you individually pronunciation problem. If that’s the case, well, that’s great cause you’ll get less to work on. But I hate you to miss out anything important. Therefore, I still do recommend that you watch all of the sessions in chronological order from the first session to the last session to get the most out of this program and latter on if you feel you meed more practice, review the sesions which you feel may need more attention.Ok. Let’s get started with today’s session. In this video, we’re going to talk about Voicing. We’ll also talk about Consonant Pairs and what they are and then we’ll cover S sounds and Z sounds. Ok, here we go.Voicing. You’re going to hear me say this word a lot and you need to understand what it is what I’m talking about. All speech sounds , all of them are either voiced or unvoiced. Now, what did that mean? Well, first, let’s take a look at this video. It may look a little bit disgusting . Do you have any idea what it is. It’s look like something that is opening and closing. I’ll give you a hint. You’ve got pair of these and you use them when you speak. Any idea? Those were vocal chords. Vocal chords are those tiny muscles that are right here when your throat that vibrates quickly and creat sound and that sound is your voice that you can easily make you vocal chords vibrate by just saying AH. That’s it. That’s voicing. Voicing is when your cocal chords are vibrating, producing a sound, and you can feel the vibrations if you put your hand right here on your throat. Do this with me. Put your hand on your throat and now let’s loud say AH. Do you feel the vibration? Those your vocal chords vibrating. Now all vowel sounds are voiced A, Oh, OO, AE, EE. You can not produce a vowel sound without voicing it. Nothing would come out. Y ou see? You need voicing. AH. So all vowels are voiced. Now, consonants are completely different story. Some consonants are voiced and some consonants are not voiced. And many consonants are what we call paired. So, let’s talk about Paired Consonants. Let’s look at the sound. The letter P makes /p//p//p/-- that’s the sound of the letter P. Are your vocal chords vibrating when you’re saying thesound?/p//p//p/.You feeling vibrations in your throat? No, your vocal chords now are not producing a sound so therefore the P sound is what we call unvoiced because there is no voicing. And this is the sign that I’m going to make when there’s no voicing.So now let’s look at the same sound the P sound /p//p//p/. But this time we’ll add voicing by vibrating our vocal chords. Now we won’t change the thing with our mouth. We’ ll keep that the same, we’ ll just add voicing. So what happens to the P sound /p//p/---/b//b/. It becomes a B sound. Watch again. P—no voicing, /p//p//p/. /b/--B, voicing. /p/--/b/. Y ou see that everything here stays the same. The only differences my vocal chords are either vibrating orthey’re not vibrating. So we say the P sound and the B sound are Paired Consonants. They’re produced exactly the same way here in your mouth, but the P sound has no voicing and the B sound /b//b/ does have voicing. Ok. Having said that, let’s look at another set of consonants. How about the letter T. What sound does that make? /t//t//t/. Is that voiced or unvoiced? /t//t//t/--It’s unvoiced. Your vocal chords are not vibrating. /t//t/. Now don’t change the thing with your mouth. Just take the same sound and add voicing. What does that T sound become?/t//t/---/d//d//d//d/---becomes a D sound. So we say that the T sound /t/ and the D sound /d/ are also Paired Consonants.Ok. Now let’s look at the F sound /f/. We’re biting down on your lower lip---/f/. Is that a voiced sound or unvoiced sound? /f/---it’s unvoiced. Your vocal chords are not vibrationg. /f/. Now same sound but this time we add voicing. /f/---/v/. V. It becomes a V/v/. You see that?F/f/---no voicing. V---voicing./v/. So the F and V are also Paired Consonants.There are many more consonants that are paired and we’ll get to those at another time. But for now, I’m going to to mention just one more. The S consonant, made with the air going through your front teeth. /s/. Any voicing going on with the sound /s/. No, the S sound is unvoiced./s/. What would be if you didn’t change the thing. Y ou just add voicing. What would the S sound become. /s/---/z/. It will become a Z sound/z/. So S has no voicing /s/, Z has voicing/z/. So we say the S sound and Z sound are also Paired Consonants. And this brings us to what I would like to cover today---S sounds/s/, Z sounds /z/and how they work in terms of word endings. I find that most people who learn English as a second language do not use the proper voicing on /s/ and /z/ endings. So what happens is it can cause your speech to sound unclear and sometimes may cause you to be misunderstood. I’m going to show you three easy rules that will help you pronunce many of these words correctly.This first rule is easy and this one I know you probably do already. Rule 1: If the last sound in a word is unvoiced, and you’re adding an S, well, then the S remains unvoiced, too. Let me explain that. Take the word Cup. Cup. It ends with the unvoiced P /p//p/Cup /p//p/or then if you add an S to the word Cup to make a plural. The S you add also remains unvoiced. So, for example, you have one cup or two cups. There’s no voicing at the end of that word. The S remains unvoiced. One cup. Two cups. That’s easy. You already do this. I’ll show you another word Cat. Cat ends with the unvoiced T/t//t/. One cat. Two cats. Again the S ending is unvoiced. Cats. This also goes for verbs like in the verb Break. I Break. Break ends with the unvoiced K sound/k//k/. There’s no voicing on that K. So when you put the word in the third person. He Breaks. The S you add also remains unvoiced. He breaks.I stop(ends with the unvoiced P /p/). I stop. He stops./s/---unvoiced S. Stops. Now as I said you already follow this rule and there really isn’t anything you don’ t know.But on rule No.2, now this one you probably do not do, So pay close attention to this rule. When adding an S to a word to make a plural. If a word ends with any of these sounds S Z SH CH or DG(J)as in Judge. Don’t worry. You really don’t need to memorize this. It will become automatic. When you add an S ending, this time, we always add the ending IZZZZZ with the voiced Z. It doesn’t matter that it’s spelled with an S. It’s never S, unvoiced, never. It’s always IZZZZZ with voiced Z. Ok. Do this with me. Put your hand on your throat, cause I want you to feel the vibration in your neck and say IZZZZZ. Feel thatright here IZZZZZ. Ok, so let’s look at the word Page, for example, which ends in a voiced sound. One Page becomes Two Page with that voiced Z. Two Pages. It’s not TwoPages/s/,unvoiced,no. It’ s Two Pages /z/ with the voiced Z. Even though you spell the word like this, in American English you pronunce the word like this PAGEZZ. You’ re probably saying I never knew that. See what you’ re learning from me. Ok, let’s look at another word in the word BUS, for example, BUS ends with an S sound /s/. BUS. So if you make a plural, you’ re going to add the ending IZZZZZ with the voiced Z. So we’ ve got One Bus or Two Buses. Buses. Two Buses. The last sound you hear is that voiced Z, Buses.Next one. Lunch. Lunch ends with the CH sound[]ʧ. So we’ve got One Lunch or Two Lunches. Lunches./IIIZ/. Very good. Let’s do some verbs. Raise. Meaning like to raise my hand. This word is a bit unusual because even though it is spelled with an S, it’ s pronunced with the voiced Z. So we say I Raise with the voiced Z ending. And he Raises. Raise. He Raises his hand. It’s voiced. Next one. Brush. Like to Brush our teeth. I Brush. He Brushes. Brushes. It’ s a voiced ending. Push. I Push. He Pushes. He pushes. Very good. By voicing these endings, your speech will become clearer, sharper and cleaner. Most likely you haven’ t noticed that American English spoken this way, but now as I pointed out listen forward when you hear people speak. To an a native listener, this makes a very big difference.Ok, here comes the thrid rule. This one’ s easy. If a word ends with a vowel sound, all you do is add a voiced Z. It’s simple. Let’s look at the word Tree. The last sound you hear in that word is the vowel /EE/ and remember a vowel is always voiced. So the word ends in a voiced sound. Tree. So what you wanna do if you’ re going to add an S to word like this to make a plural is you continue the voicing throughout the whole word and add on a voiced Z. So here we go. You’ve got One Tree or Two Trees. It’s not Trees /s/ with the unvoiced S. It’s Tress /z/ with that voiced ending. Y ou see that. Another example, the word Day. It ends with the voiced sound /e/, so you have One Day or Two Days. It’s not Days/s/---unvoiced S. Days/z/, with voiced Z ending. Next one. Shoe. One shoe. Two shoes. Next is the verb Fly, which ends with the voiced sound[а]ɪ. So you’ ve got I Fly. He Flys.Keep that ending voiced. Flys. The last sound you hear in the word Game is the M sound /m/, which is a voiced consonant. So because of that, when you add an S, the S should also be voiced. One game. Two games. Games. Another word. Head ends with the voiced D/d/, so we got One Head or Two Heads. Heads. It’s voiced. Two heads. Very good. Next word. Train ends with the voiced n. See that? So you’ ve got One Train or Two Trains. Two Trains with the voiced Z ending. Song ends with the voiced NG sound, so if you make a plural, don’t forget to add a voiced Z ending.Y ou’ ve got One Song or Two Songs. Two Songs.Now what I just showed you take some practice to actually incorporate into your English. But I can tell you from past experience that most my clients were able tomaster these S and Z voiced endings in just a few weeks.Ok, now for something else. As you know by now, English is a difficult and crazy language. All these words that I’m going to show you now are written with an S, however, they’ re all pronunced with voiced Z. Why this is I have no idea, but this is how English is.Here we go. The word Is. It’s not /Is/(unvoiced). It’s pronunced as if it were a Z/IZ/. This is good. You hear that. Is. His. Same thing. It also has a voiced Z ending. His mom is Mary. As.Y ou pronunce it with voiced Z. As the phone ring. Was, which is a very common word. It was raining.These, voiced ending. These are my children. Those. Those are my books. Easy, again, the S is like a voiced Z. Easy. This is easy. Because, which is another common word. Because we were late.Ok, now let’s do some practice with reading passages. Each of these has many voiced and unvoiced S and Z sounds. All of the unvoiced Z sounds you’ ll see are underlined. If you printed out the training manual using a color printer, you’ ll notice that the voiced Z sounds are all printed in red. This will help you visually see which sounds should be voiced. I’ m going o slow and exaggerate the sounds. You may just wanna listen to me first, then stop the video, practise on your own and then later on watch this video again and pratice with me. Whatever feels right to you. Now this first one has many voiced Z sounds. Here we go.Another zippy, zappy, crazy day comes to a close. As we zoom up to Joe’s snooze zone,Zoe Jones of Zodiac Zoo plays with her zipper.Very good. Next one.Last week, Jim’s brothers were picked to represent their country in the Olympic Games. Two of the brothers were swimmers, while the other two were long distance runners. All of the brothers wore glasses. These athletes worked hard at qualifying for the games and were hoping to come home with prizes. Since the brothers go to the same university, they often take the same courses. This makes studying easier and gives them more time to do other things.O, here’ s the last one.On Thursday, I had a very lazy day. I woke up early and first squeezed oranges into juice. I then got dressed and watched the sunrise come up over the mountains. It was so beautiful that I took many pictures with my camera and I used three rolls of film. After drinking two cups of coffee, I got dressed, left the house, and walked three miles home.Very good. Now another good way to practise these voiced S and Z endings is to do a naming activity. What you do is you just sit in your rome and out loud name everything you see. First in singular form, and then in plural form. For example, you look around and you say out loud One door, Two doors with the voiced Z ending. One table. Two tables. One computer. Two computers. One light. Two lights. Some of my clients found this to be very helpful. In addition, try listening for these voiced sounds when you hear native-borned Americans speak. It’s very good ear-training and that’ ll help you improve. Soon , slowly begin to put these sounds into your ownspeech. Y ou’ ll find that by adding these voiced endings your English will sound cleaner and people will have an easier time understanding you. Believe me it’s going to really make an improvement.Before we finish, I have one more suggestion that comes from clients who have taken this program. I think it’s really a good idea. If you can find a very small mirror and attach it maybe with some tape right onto the side of your computer monitor right next to the screen. By having a mirror right in front of you during our sessions you can easily read the text on the screen, watch my mouth and then look right into the mirror at your own mouth. Y ou’ ll。