I'm going to start this with a question that just begs to be asked: why is it that in twelve years of grammar and high school the only person who bothered to ever correct my pronunciation of English sounds was my father?I know that sounds somewhat odd, right, but it's true. Sure, there have been people who'd have us practice 'v' and 'w' and 'th', but they never corrected anyone. Which, frankly, sucks.
It was the 'th' sound my dad started bothering me with because 'three' sounded like 'free' when I said it. Admittedly, I was ten or so, but still, that's pretty bad, and I didn't want to end up in a joke.
(There's this lame joke about a German pronunciation in which the Germans pronounce the 'th' like an 's', and it goes approximately like this:
A British ship gets into trouble and they send out an SOS, saying "Mayday, mayday, we are sinking." The reply comes, "Here is German coastguard. And what are you thinking about?")
Anyway, I guess my dad didn't want me to sound like this, so he tried to teach me the 'th'. He didn't succeed, not really, but the funny thing is (and by funny I mean regrettable) that no teacher ever said anything to me. Sure, they told us about the 'th', but they didn't tell us who got it wrong or make us practice. They probably couldn't even do it properly themselves. I don't know, I forgot what they sounded like.
What I'm wondering is if pronunciation is so important, why did nobody bother to teach us? The world is full of bad jokes on that topic, and pretty much everyone knows how to make fun out of a French or Russian or whatever accent, so what the heck are teachers in Slovenia doing?
That said, there have been some people who tried to teach me at that little thingie called English Camp Slovenia, and they focused on the 'v', 'w', and 'th'. But why the 'v' and 'w'? Seriously, how is that even hard (at least for somebody who speaks Slovene)? I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I got that one right even then, and still nobody cared. It wasn't about what somebody could or couldn't say, it was about what they thought we couldn't say. Ugh. Zero useful feedback?
I'm not really a fan of pronunciation practice, but I sure am glad somebody is finally forcing us to do something about it.
For the first time ever I was forced to listen to a recording of myself. And once I got over the phase of I do not sound like that, I sound nothing like that, oh my God, that's terrible, I settled for the conclusion that, yes, I do indeed sound terrible and should probably stay away from careers that involve recording my voice or reading in public. Or teaching anyone how to pronounce 'r' because I can't do that in any language (except maybe German since they eat the 'r's anyway).
Of course there are some sounds I have to work on more than on others. One of them would be the good old 'th'. Now, I think I know how to pronounce both of them, in theory, but when I talk to someone, I really don't spend any time thinking how I have to push my tongue forward, and I speak way too fast anyway, and then I kind of eat half the letters. It would be nice getting the sounds right without actively thinking about them, yes? Yes.
The other thing to practice are probably voiced and devoiced sounds. I thought I could do that. Mhm. Yeah. Right. Maybe not. Then again, Slovene does pronounce about half of the voiced sounds as if they were devoiced...
I also messed up 'aluminum', and this is probably as good a time as any to decide which variety of English I'd like to speak, American or British. The answer? Both. I'd like to know both, and then some, so that I can sound British if I go to Britain and American when I'm in the U.S., and so on. I was going to pick British for the exam because it really is easier to hear American English on TV and online, and consequently easier to remember, but to be honest, I suck at speaking in any way that sounds even remotely British, so American it is.
~s (in hopes of sucking somewhat less when it comes to American English)
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