The reasons for poor oral English may be pronunciation problems, insufficient vocabulary and poor sense of language. However, there is another situation where some people speak English fluently, but it sounds like a special kind of "localization"-to put it bluntly, Chinglish or English with a local accent.
In this case, you need to work hard on your intonation. On the premise that oral English itself has a good foundation, once the intonation is mastered skillfully, the whole oral English will sound brand-new and amazing.
Today we will talk about the characteristics of American English intonation and how to practice it.
First, don't pronounce words word for word, but connect the words to form a sound group.
American English doesn't pay attention to clear pronunciation and mellow voice like Chinese, and the pronunciation word by word will sound dull and unnatural in spoken English. Therefore, in order to practice oral English well, it is an inevitable step to learn to turn word-for-word pronunciation into "sound group" pronunciation.
In my previous articles, I often mentioned the skills of linking, abbreviation and tone sandhi, all in order to practice the sound group and lay the foundation.
This involves the concept of phonology ―― what is phonology? Simply put, when we speak, we don't use words to express it, but use a set of sounds composed of a series of syllables to express it. This is the sound group.
A phonetic group may or may not correspond to a word, and sometimes a whole sentence may be a phonetic group, such as the following sentence-
Tom is on the phone.
Phonetic symbol: [tmznfon]
You will find that the phonetic symbols of this symbol do not distinguish words, but are completely connected, which intuitively shows that the whole sentence forms a whole like a long word, and we can regard it as a phonetic group.
By mastering the usage of phonology, we can stop jumping out word by word when speaking spoken English, but take phonology as the unit to make the sound smooth and natural.
Second, idiomatic American English uses step-by-step intonation.
What is pace? Imagine that when you speak, your tone is on a series of high and low steps. When you talk, it's like walking briskly on the steps. Sometimes your tone jumps to a higher level, and sometimes it jumps to a lower level, thus forming different tones.
One problem that needs attention is that Americans tend to lengthen their pronunciation when they speak, but vowels are lengthened and consonants cannot be lengthened. Extended vowels need to be placed on two steps, not on the same step.
Give a chestnut-
We are here.
Guess, should the above sentence be put in three steps or four steps? The answer is four-
Here, every two diagonal lines represent a step. The four steps of this sentence are decreasing step by step. You can imagine four steps with decreasing height in your mind and put four sets of syllables on them.
Another principle is that when Americans read a word ending in a consonant, the vowel in front of it often speaks quickly. If it is a monosyllabic word, the whole word will be on the same step, such as seat.
But when a word ends with a voiced consonant, the vowel in front of the voiced consonant will be lengthened, and the whole word will be divided into two steps, such as: seed-se/ed.
In oral communication, it is much more convenient to distinguish whether the suffix is voiced consonant or voiced consonant in this way than to distinguish whether the vocal cords vibrate, because voiced and unvoiced sounds are very common in American English.
On the basis of understanding the step pitch, we can change the pitch to make our pitch more pleasant and authentic.
Well, that's all for today and we'll discuss it tomorrow. Does the pitch change regularly in the sentence? What rules do Americans use to change their intonation?