Clear English Pronunciation A Practical Guide

Clear English Pronunciation provides students with the tools to effectively communicate in English without centring solely on native-speaker pronunciation models. The focus of the book is on individual pronunciation targets rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. Divided into four sections, each featuring detailed articulatory explanations, sample sentences, and recordings to help learners improve their pronunciation, this book: introduces the phenomenon of pronunciation as part of a broader communicative realm; explains and demonstrates the melody and rhythm of understandable and natural English pronunciation; supports students in identifying and practicing their own pronunciation issues. Supported by an interactive companion website which features recordings and expanded explanations of key topics, Clear English Pronunciation is an essential textbook for international learners of English who want to improve their pronunciation skills in diverse social settings. For more resources on English pronunciation, visit: englishpronunciationcentral.universiteitleiden.nl Additionally, you can find recordings of a wide range of speakers here: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/clearenglishpronunciation

Preface Acknowledgements Your pronunciation before the course PART A – SECOND-LANGUAGE PRONUNCIATION 2. Improving pronunciation 3. Using the speech tract 4. Using other pronunciation tools PART B – COMBINING SOUNDS 5. Intonation 6. Vowel reduction 7. Word stress 8. Stressful words 9. Pronunciation variation 10. Sentence stress 11. Silences 12. Fortis and lenis endings 13. Contraction and assimilation PART C – DIFFICULT CONSONANTS 14. Pronouncing pea, tea, and key [p, t, k] 15. Pronouncing teeth and teethe [?, ð] 16. Pronouncing veer, beer, and Wear [v, b, w] 17. Pronouncing see and she [s, ?] 18. Pronouncing veal and zeal [v, z] 19. Choosing rhotacisation 20. Pronouncing right and light [?, l] 21. Unpronounced consonants 22. Consonant tests PART D – DIFFICULT VOWELS 23. Pronouncing dark and Dirk [??, ??] 24. Pronouncing Dirk and dork [??, ??] 25. Pronouncing dork and Doke [?:, o?] 26. Pronouncing Doke and dock [o?, ?] 27. Pronouncing dock and duck [?, ?] 28. Pronouncing look and Luke [?, u?] 29. Pronouncing lick and leek [?, i?] 30. Pronouncing marry and merry [æ, ?] 31. Pronouncing merry and Mary [?, ??] 32. Avoiding vowel rhotacisation 33. Avoiding vowel nasalisation 34. Vowel tests Your pronunciation after the course References Index

Dick Smakman is a Lecturer at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He teaches and researches English language acquisition and sociolinguistics. He has taught English, Dutch, and sociolinguistics at various universities.