One of the toughest things for people learning English is pronunciation. Despite English having an alphabet of only 26 letters over a thousand different sounds can be created with them, making English one of the simplest and yet complicated languages in the world. At Smith’s 英会話 Hirakata we make it a priority for students to say words clearly because failing to say a word correctly can often confuse the listeners. I remember many years ago a student telling me a story about taking a bus and how she had fell down and hurt herself. In my mind I was recreating the situation and I was following, how she had been reading but when she stood up she had slipped. Thankfully her mother was there to help her. I asked her what she did afterwards to which she replied, “I put on my clothes.” I remember thinking, “Huh, what is she talking about? Maybe her jacket or scarf had fallen off.” Then I got even more confused…why? Because she was taking a BATH, not a bus. The funny thing was that the story made complete sense right up until the end using either word but the picture being painted in my mind was vastly different.
Anyway, if you feel like laughing I suggest you watch this video of someone trying to master the American accent. One of my favorites.
Enjoy.
Adrian
Hahaha, that’s a funny video. (^.^)
I agree. That’s happened to me, too. Besides “bus” and “bath”, “work” and “walk” are also not easy for some students. Showing students how to pronounce well is one of the things that I enjoy about my job teaching English in Japan as you can read at http://tinyurl.com/245yyje .
Keep up the great work!
Derek (^.^)/
Yes, it is important and being lazy just because your teacher can understand your Japanese pronunciation of English words is not really a good thing. I have a video in the Smitweb Japanese blog with a Japanese girl who will be working part time for me. Her pronunciation is a good example of what a Japanese girl’s pronunciation can be. She lived in Germany and attended international schools for 6 years has almost a perfect TOEIC score. But what really makes her special is her English pronunciation. Listen to her pronunciation in the TOEIC video about Johnny Depp.–>http://www.smithweb.co.jp/soapbox/2010/10/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%9F%E3%82%B9%E8%8B%B1%E4%BC%9A%E8%A9%B1-toeic-%E3%83%AC%E3%83%83%E3%82%B9%E3%83%B3lesson-39-johnny-dep/