In this post, I’m going to present some English pronunciation problems that are typical for speakers of Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Japanese. These mistakes can make it difficult for a native speaker to understand you, so you should try to work on them. You don’t need a native speaker’s accent, but it’s very important to be understood. 25% of your IELTS Speaking test score is based on pronunciation.
Pronunciation difficulties
In the tables below, I have included one major problem for each group of speakers. I’ve also included some words for you to practise. To listen to the correct pronunciation, go to the website Ivona.com and enter the words in the text box. In a future post, I may include other languages.
| Problem | What to practise |
|---|---|
| In Portuguese, /r/ is pronounced /h/ at the beginning of words, so Portuguese speakers might confuse head with red, height with right, and so on. | head/red, height/right, rat/hat, root/hoot, role/hole |
| Problem | What to practise |
|---|---|
| Spanish words hardly ever start with an 's+consonant' sound. Words that have 's+consonant' near the beginning usually all start with an 'e' as the first letter, for example escuela (school). This results in pronunciation mistakes like 'I am from Espain'. | Spain, Spanish, school, special, speak, square, sport |
| Problem | What to practise |
|---|---|
| In Arabic, there is no /p/ sound and many learners pronounce the letter 'p' as /b/. This causes pronunciation mistakes like 'Baris' instead of 'Paris'. | pace/base, peas/bees, pat/bat, prick/brick, pit/bit, pouring/boring |
| Problem | What to practise |
|---|---|
| There is no /v/ sound in Cantonese, standard Mandarin and Korean. This causes pronunciation mistakes like 'wery' instead of 'very'. | veil/whale, vile/while, vent/went, vine/wine, vary/wary, veal/wheel |
| Problem | What to practise |
|---|---|
| The sounds /l/ and /r/ are problematic for Japanese speakers. This is because the Japanese 'r' sounds like something between the English /r/ and /l/. This causes pronunciation mistakes like 'lice' instead of 'rice'. | light/right, long/wrong, wrist/list, lips/rips, reach/leech, royal/loyal |
| Problem | What to practise |
|---|---|
| Hind speakers need to be careful with the sounds /t/ and /d/. In Hindi, the tongue is curled back, which produces a heavy sound. In English, the sound is much lighter. | but, cut, too, total, taste, said, dead, Madrid, bedroom, ladder |
| Problem | What to practise |
|---|---|
| There is no /w/ in Russian, so Russian speakers tend to confuse /w/ and /v/ in English. This causes mistakes like 'Vell' instead of 'Well'. | veil/whale, vile/while, vent/went, vine/wine, vary/wary, veal/wheel |
You can watch more examples of mispronounced words in Lecture #20 of the IELTS Speaking Masterclass course.
I am appriciate Ur method of improving speaking.give me more tips thanks
your way is really appreciating
hoping for more tips
good tips.
Spanish words never start with an ‘s’ sound? Is that a joke, or you meant ‘s’ followed by another consonant? English poses plenty of pronunciation challenges for Spanish speakers, but pronouncing ‘s’ plus a consonant is probably the least of important (or difficult one) compared to other features. Frankly, not a good advice.
Yes, I meant ‘s + consonant’. I’ve changed that. Sure, there are lots of pronunciation challenges for native speakers of many languages. This is just one issue specific to Spanish learners. The post was not meant to be comprehensive.