Pronunciation of a language has many facets. Understanding more about these facets of spoken English, will help you to improve your pronunciation. This web site is designed to provide you with information about five key facets which will help you understand how to speak American English more clearly.

The smallest units of information when pronouncing a language are speech sounds which are consonants and vowels. American English has sixteen vowel sounds and twenty eight consonant sounds.Some of these sounds exist in your native language, but the other sounds may prove challenging for you.

Accurate pronunciation at the word level requires that you understand and accurately use word stress which is stressing the appropriate syllable of a word. Stressing a syllable is saying the vowel in the syllable slightly longer, louder and higher than the other syllables.It is important that you develop your listening skills so you can identify the stressed syllable and your speaking skills so you can accurately produce word stress consistently.

Linking is the part of pronunciation which involves linking the ends of words with the beginnings of the following words. Therefore, linking is pronunciation beyond the word level, perhaps at the level of phrases. Linking words together allows the speaker to say parts of the phrases faster which affects the rhythm of the statements.

The rhythm of a language is an important consideration when speaking.Rhythm,stressing the important words of your statements and reducing the less important words, has a profound effect on how easily people understand you when you speak. This is because native speakers of the language expect the material to be presented a certain way and when your stress and rhythmic patterns meet the listener's expectations, everything is fine, but when you don't people are distracted or misunderstand you.

Another aspect of pronunciation at the statement level is intonation. Producing the rising and falling tones of the language allows us to reveal our meaning more precisely and to speak more efficiently. We differentiate certain questions and statements using intonation. In addition we separate parts of statements with intonation. Of course our ability to produce short questions and responses accurately depends on our use of intonation.