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English Pronunciation 5 lessons
  1. 1 Clear, not accentless
  2. 2 The sounds that need work sign in to open
  3. 3 Stress and rhythm sign in to open
  4. 4 Practising so it transfers sign in to open
  5. 5 Speaking in real situations sign in to open
Course overview
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English Pronunciation · Lesson 1 of 5

Clear, not accentless

Aim at the right target.

The goal is not to sound British or American. It is to be understood easily by people who do not share your first language. Those are different targets, and chasing the first wastes years.

Most of the world speaks English as a second language. An Indian engineer talking to a Filipino manager and a German client is the ordinary case. What matters in that conversation is clarity, not accent, and a strong accent with clear articulation is understood perfectly while a weak accent with unclear stress is not.

What actually causes misunderstanding, in order of importance.

Word stress. English words have a stressed syllable, and putting it in the wrong place makes a word unrecognisable even when every sound is correct. This is the single largest cause of not being understood, and it is rarely taught.

Sounds that do not exist in Urdu, particularly the two th sounds, the v and w distinction, and the difference between short and long vowels such as ship and sheep.

Consonant clusters, where English piles consonants together in ways Urdu does not, and a vowel gets inserted to break them up.

Speed. Speaking quickly to sound fluent has the opposite effect. Slightly slower and clearer is understood better everywhere.

What does not matter. Which variety of English you lean towards, a regional colouring, or occasional imperfection. Be proud of your accent and work on being clear.

Lab — try it yourself

Record yourself reading a paragraph aloud. Listen back and mark every word where you are unsure. That list is your work.

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Continue to lesson 2 Up next 2. The sounds that need work