Ah! The Spanish pronunciation! For English speakers it seems as if it’s something out of this world, but there’s always a way out, trust me.
Here I’m going to give you some cool tips so you can improve your Spanish pronunciation. Remember, being great at anything takes some time, so don’t be hard on yourself if things don’t go so well at first, but be persistent!
Ok, you can’t improve your pronunciation or your listening skills if you don’t have an audio program. Most language institutes provide students with a copy of the textbook’s audio (if yours doesn’t, complain!) and that’s a great tool to work with. Why is that? Because you’re improving in your own level, you don’t need to study advanced sentences if you’re still in a beginner’s level.
After your teacher presents the dialogue/pronunciation exercise in the classroom and you think you’ve mastered it, do it many more times. Practice makes perfect, always. Now, if you’re learning Spanish on your own, there is plenty of audio material online like radio stations, Youtube videos and even easy podcasts you can follow.
Now that you have your audio ready, let’s get down to work. Suppose you’re working with a dialogue. First, listen to it attentively many times. After that read it without making any sounds, just doing the mouth movements. After that, start reading it out loud along with the native speaker in the audio. Do this many, many times. You’re bound to get tired at first, but keep doing it, you’ll see how it pays off in the end. Newsflash: there’s no easy way to learn it, you have to do it!
Don’t shy away from long words, there are oodles of them in Spanish. Try and notice what the strong syllable is, mark it, and after you’ve gotten the pronunciation right, make a new sentence with it. It doesn’t have to be a complicated sentence, an easy one will do for now.
Do dictations! Yes, listen to the dialogue or text in Spanish and write it down. Being able to see how sounds work and how they’re written will help you a lot with your pronunciation. And while you’re at it, listen, listen and listen some more. Take it from me, I’m Brazilian and I speak both English and Spanish fluently and even though I can call myself “proficient” in both languages, I listen to radio programs, movies, what have you, all the time, in English and Spanish.
And last, but not least, whenever you can, talk to native speakers and pay attention to how they make the sounds they do. I’m pretty sure they’ll be glad to show you how a word is pronunced if you ask them (nicely, of course!).
So, dear reader, let’s go for it! I know you can do it! It just takes some scheduling and organization and your pronunciaton will be killer BYKI, before you know it!
I hope these tips can help you, they sure have helped me throughout these years.
Leave your tips on improving pronunciaton in the comments part, ok?
Nos vemos prontito.
