Resources
Recommended books and apps to help you improve your pronunciation.
Books
This book is ideal for beginners with no knowledge of English pronunciation. It explains in simple terms how to produce the individual sounds of English and how to identify them in writing. The book contains lots of practical exercises and introduces students to more advanced topics such as word stress, connected speech and intonation. The book comes with over 5 hours of audio in a variety of accents which can be downloaded from the Cambridge website. You can buy it here.
This book teaches students similar content as the Elementary book including individual sounds, word stress, connected speech and intonation. However, this book is intended for students who already have a basic understanding of English pronunciation. Consequently, the exercises are more challenging and it explains some more advanced features of word stress, connected speech and intonation. The book comes with over 4 hours of downloadable audio spoken in a variety of accents. You can buy it here.
This book is intended for students who already have a good knowledge of English pronunciation. Consequently, it doesn’t teach the basic sounds of English. Instead, it focuses more on word stress, connected speech and intonation. It comes with plenty of exercises and over 4 hours of downloadable audio in a variety of accents. I highly recommend this book for students who want to understand how English intonation works. You can buy it here.
This is the best book I have read about English pronunciation. It clearly explains all elements of English phonology including phonemes, stress, intonation and connected speech. It also explains how these vary according to accent and comes with a large collection of audio samples. Some of the vocabulary might be a bit challenging for beginners but I highly recommend it for students who want to understand English pronunciation. You can buy it here.
This is a great follow-on book to read after ‘Practical Phonetics and Phonology’ because it explains how Received Pronunciation has changed since it was standardised and the limitations it has when understanding modern Received Pronunciation, also know as Standard Southern British English. You can buy it here.
Apps
italki is the world’s largest online language learning platform with millions of users worldwide. I’ve personally used it as a teacher and a student, and I highly recommend it. Sign up here.
Preply is an online tutoring platform with a large range of language tutors to choose from. I have used it as a teacher and highly recommend it for language learners. Sign up here.
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