Menu
This chart will help you identify and focus on your pronunciation challenges that prevent you from sounding clear, keep you stuck, interfere with your flow, or just make you feel self-conscious about your speaking.
The challenges are ranked high to low, because some are more critical than others and more likely to undermine your clarity.
Consonant Swapping (1) Replacing a consonant with another consonant that exists in English *Not every consonant swap is critical for your clarity. If you replace one consonant with another in the pairs listed here, you are more likely to be misunderstood. This is why these consonant pairs are high priority. | light ~ right go ~ goal see ~ she ship ~ chip can ~ cam think ~ sink breathe ~ breeze pet ~ bet bad ~ badge |
Sound deletion Dropping a consonant or an entire syllable | tech instead of text (tekst) mine instead of mind praks instead of practice |
Sound insertion Adding a vowel (and by that, adding a syllable to the word) | bagu instead of bag hug-ged instead of hugged |
Misplacing the primary stress Emphasizing the wrong syllable in a word | colleague instead of colleague develop instead of develop president instead of president dictionary instead of dictionary integrate instead of integrate |
| Consonant swapping (2) Replacing a consonant with another consonant that exists in English | red-wed vet ~ wet thank ~ tank they ~ day rise ~ rice virgin ~ version |
Vowel swapping Replacing a vowel with another vowel that exists in English | cap ~ cup ~ cop sheep ~ ship pool ~ pull bed ~ bad pen ~ pin |
Diphthong simplification Changing a diphthong into a monophthong | bait ~ bet coat ~ cot |
Using the wrong intonation for your message Putting the stress on a different word that can change the meaning of a sentence | What do you want? vs. What do you want? |
Not using connected speech Not linking words together | I / got / a / letter / from / her / friend vs. I-got-a-letter-from-her-friend |
Emphasizing every word the same Giving every word in the sentence the same importance | I would like to go to the park with you instead of I’d like t’go t’th’park w’th you |
Mispronouncing sounds Pronouncing a sound as you would in your first language rather than as it should be pronounced in English. | red leg you about |
Not aspirating stops at the beginning of words or stressed syllables Stop sounds in English should be aspirated at the beginning of words and in stressed syllables |
pit / ten / cap |
Pronouncing all Ts the same Articulating an aspirated T in all contexts |
water button internet |
| Subtle mispronunciations | * All sounds |
| Lack of pitch variation | * Monotone speech |
