Speak OUT

Many people ask me how they can improve their pronunciation, and you guys have to understand that this is a very vague question. There are myriads of ways to improve your pronunciation/speaking skills, and I wanted to talk about one specifically today.

When I first read an English book, I would always look for an empty room or place to read it. I was 11 and the book was "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". It was terrible for me, because I knew less than half of that English, but I was determined.

Why am I talking about reading on a speaking post? Because halfway through the book, I decided to read out loud. It sounded so dumb in the beginning: you listen to yourself and that sounds terrible. YOU KNOW WHAT? It DOES! And there's nothing you can change about it. You have to go through it sooner or later. And FURTHERMORE, it is a lot better to read aloud and make mistakes than make those mistakes in front of other people.

But how can I improve my pronunciation if no one's around to correct me?

Well, knowing how to speak takes many steps. One of the most important ones is done when you read aloud, which is knowing the words and vocabulary. The biggest issue I see ESL speakers struggling with is lack of vocabulary. Reading adds a vast foundation of vocabulary. Knowing how to pronounce comes later.

So go ahead, read aloud and make mistakes, because it takes someone to make 500,000 mistakes until fluency is achieved. Don't be afraid to speak out loud. Doing so will give you courage to speak with other people in English when it happens.