English is Tough Stuff

Unfortunately, the spelling of English words doesn't give much of a clue as to how to pronounce them. Take the combination of letters "ough" for example. This is pronounced "oo" in through,
"off" in cough, "uff" in tough, "ow" in bough.
So the only remedy to the second problem stated in the posting of Oct 10th is exposure and practice. You need to hear and see words at the same time. Books on tape for instance, are a good idea. Movies with subtitles are also good. Additionally, there are many places on the internet where you can read essays or speeches and listen to them at the same time. I will add some links in the coming days.
There is a poem called "English is tough stuff" which points out many words where the spelling
of words are similar but the sound is different. In order to make use of this though, you need to work with a native speaker. http://www.unique.cc/ron/estuff.htm
Every time I work with a student on this poem, I am glad I learned English as a baby. I would have a great deal of difficulty learning all this now.

One Sound at a Time

In order to deal with problem 1 as mentioned in the previous post, the speaker of English as a second language first has to identify what sound they are having trouble with but they don't have to reinvent the wheel. You are not the first speaker of your first language who has had to learn English. Many have gone before you.The common errors made by people whose mother tongue is the same as yours are public knowledge.
There is a fabulous website called the Speech Accent Archive where they have samples of people all over the world reading a short passage in English and they analyze the departures from General American English. Using this, you can find out what errors you may be making.
Ask a native English speaker to help you identify one sound to work on. It could be "TH" for example. Then go to YouTube. they have little videos that will tell you where to put your tongue and lips to produce this sound. This is your "Sound of the Week". Work on one sound at a time.
Watch TV or listen to the radio just listening for this one sound. Go to places where you can hear English speakers.
Find a native English speaker and say "Am I producing this sound correctly?" Most people will be happy to help you as long as you give them a specific sound to listen for. If you just ask them to tell you when you make a mistake in English pronunciation, they may not be able to figure out exactly where you are going wrong or they may be unwilling to "criticize" you.
Next, google on "Tongue Twisters TH" You will be able to find lots of challenging tongue twisters. Practice, practice, practice.
Once you have trained yourself to accurately produce one troublesome sound, move on to the next. You will find that if you are able to accurately produce one or two sounds that you were having trouble with, you will have made great progress.

Strong Accent?

My friend Jorge is from south America. He has studied English since he was small. He knows how to put an English sentence together and has been in Canada for a few years. He understands 98% of what he hears and he can read newspaper articles though he has to look up a word now and then.
However, he finds that people often ask him to repeat himself. He thinks he knows how to pronounce most English words. "Where can I be going wrong?" he asks me. "People say I have a strong accent."
This affects his confidence so he speaks quietly and mumbles making himself even harder to understand.
Well Jorge, having a "strong accent" means that your pronunciation varies enough from the local Standard English as to sound strange or even incomprehensible.
There is nothing wrong with having an accent unless you are having trouble making yourself understood.
In my experience as a Business English consultant, I find that there are three areas in particular where speakers of English as a second language can have problems in being understood or in being perceived as having a "strong accent"

So Jorge could have problems in one or more of the following areas:

1. He may pronounce one or more sounds or phonemes used to form English words incorrectly(with a variance from local Standard English).

2. He may not have had enough exposure to English to know how to pronounce the words that are in his vocabulary. English spelling doesn't help you with pronunciation.

3. Perhaps Jorge can pronounce hundreds of words correctly in isolation but is not aware that when you combine them into sentences, they are often pronounced differently.
English is a stress-timed language and we change the pronunciation of vowels to fit the rhythm of the sentence.

The good news is that none of these problems is insurmountable and I will be making lots of entries with more information on these topics and with tips on how to improve your pronunciation.