Visa or Pizza sounds similar but depends upon listeners’ intention
Visa or Pizza sounds similar but depends upon listeners’ intention
Like all languages, English has its own unique set of sounds. Although many of the English sounds may be the same or almost the same as in your native language, many are different. If you want to speak English well, you cannot pronounce English words using the sounds of your native language. If you do so, your English will be difficult to understand. Therefore, you have to know all the English sounds, listen to how they sound in real words and sentences, and practice your pronunciation.
I remember, I was told by my teacher that there are two main ways in which you should practice pronouncing English words – official practice and incidental practice.
To learn correct pronouncing, one should sit down with the specific goal of practicing pronunciation from time to time. Play some recordings of words and phrases in your preferred dialect of English and repeat what you hear.
Similarly, one ought to regularly try pronouncing English words during other activities, e.g. while watching TV, listening to an audio book, waiting for the bus, taking a shower, reading something on the Web etc.
Of course, before you practice a word, make sure you know how it should be pronounced; if you don’t, look it up in a dictionary.
But, what would you do when you say a word which sounds like another word. Sometimes, it becomes a funny situation. The other person would accept the word only which is suitable to him.
I was surprised to see my grand-daughter – Samaria – who lives in Singapore now a days as she has started speaking English so fine that even I could not complete with him so far as the pronunciation is concerned and grasping of words quickly by making addition to her own dictionary. When one day, she asked me a question as to what would you do if someone is ill in the hospital. I was immediately corrected when I said that I will pay a courtesy visit in the hospital, “No Nanu, you will say, Get Well Soon. Again, one I said to her, are you joking with me. No Nanu, I was just pretending. Even I have hardly used this word.
Coming to the similar pronunciation word, it happened so that when I asked to my grand-daughter, who is still to complete her four years, to ask grand-daughter of my elder daughter, to have visa first to come to Singapore. The young generation is so smart that they respond spontaneously what comes to their mind. She immediately said, “Nanu, what you said, to have Pizza first to come to Singapore”. We all standing by her were stunned to hear her instant reply, perhaps, she might be feeling hungry or pretending. Really, it depends upon listeners’ intention when you pronounce the word of similar sounds.
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