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Episode #8

Google corrects your pronunciation and tells you how to improve

00:09:55 minutes long
audio file size: 14.1 mb

Learning to speak a new language can be challenging, no doubt about that.
Especially English.

All those funky words like knight, laugh, paradigm and psychology that have all these letters that are not pronounced.

And what about the confusing pairs like celery-salary, back-buck, pool-pull that if we confuse them, we may sound unclear?

Or words like beach, focus, spreadsheet and fox that if we mispronounce them, we might get a face-palm moment ?‍♀️

Even when you know how certain words should sound like, you don’t necessarily know what to do in order to pronounce them correctly.
And this uncertainty leads to insecurity.

But what if I told you Google has come up with a brand new feature just for that?
Pronto is a tool I helped Google develop, and it’s based on the experience and detailed feedback I give to my own students.

How to use it:

  • Open Google on your mobile phone and make sure you’re logged in to your Google account (use Safari on iPhone)
  • Type “how to pronounce” and add any word you’re not sure how to pronounce. The Google search tool would spell the word for you as it should be pronounced. The transcription is plain and pretty straightforward
  • Listen to the pronunciation of the word, and pay attention to the sounds that are most challenging to you
  • Push the “practice” button
  • Record yourself saying the word

Pronto would detect the specific sounds that you mispronounced and let you know what you need to do in order to improve, as well as offer you more words to practice with. 

So you don’t need to be confused anymore about whether you pronounce words correctly or not. Listen to the episode and find out how you can use Google’s Pronto yourself.

If you want to improve your accent and understand spoken English better, download my free American Accent audio crash course.

You can also download an interactive list of  50 of the most mispronounced words in English and master the pronunciation of those tricky words. 

You want to improve but you need to practice? Join our community on Facebook – the best place to practice English online for free.

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7 Responses

  1. Hi,
    I’m using Android and O can’t see this button of record ourselves. Does it only work on iphone?
    Thanks in advance,
    Lily

  2. Logged in google , everything fine but when try to practice it says : Something went wrong. Try again.

    I have tested by my us native but result is same ; Something went wrong. Try again
    How to fix it ?

  3. As I understood, my pronunciation can be recorded and checked but I don’t see the “Practice” button anywhere. Would you please help me find it? Thank you so much!

    1. Hey, Erleng!
      Sergey here from Hadar’s Team. 

      First of all, you have to make sure that you are logged in with your _Google_ account in the browser you’re using.
      And also, your ‘search language’ option has to be set to English:  https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/3333234?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en  
      Next thing: the pronunciation has to be set to “American pronunciation” in order for the Practice button to appear there.
      You can have a look again about it in the video: https://youtu.be/WRn03Fb40yo?t=136

      Let us know if it worked for you!

    1. Hi Shaikh!

      Sergey here from Hadar’s Team. I am very sorry for this extremely belated answer, we had some issues with the website and couldn’t see your comment!

      I’ve sent you an email with the instructions. You can also see them in the comment above!

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