Fluent with Friends

1.1 Deep Pronunciation Intro

Power Learning

Week 1: Introduction, Overview, and Tips

Welcome to the Fluent with Friends Deep Pronunciation Course. Our goal is to help you develop the
mindset, perception, and tools to dramatically improve your pronunciation, to express yourself more
confidently, and to better understand and connect with people across cultures, including native speakers.

Here’s a quick overview of what you will be learning over the next 16 weeks.

WK TITLE DESCRIPTION
1 Course description & overview, Supplementary material,
Introduction, Overview, and Tips growth vs fixed mindset. Orientation on recording,
delivering your voice recordings, and receiving feedback.
2 The music behind the words- The Rhythm & Flow of
Content & Function Words English, Segmental vs Supra-segmental Pronunciation.
3 Words ending with T often contract with words that
Law #1: T + Y  CH start with Y. The TY becomes a “ch” sound
Example: Nice to meet-you = Nice to me-chew
4 Words ending with D often contract with words that
Law #2: D + Y  J start with Y. The JY becomes a “j” sound.
Example: Did-you call?= di-jew call?
5 The T sound is often reduced to a D sound in North
Law #3: N. American T D American English.
Example: Water = Wader, Butter = Budder
6 The H sound is often reduced on subject pronouns and
Law #4: Reduction of the “H” possessive adjectives like he, her(s), his, her.
Example: I think he’s right = I think-he’s right
7 The OF and ‘VE sound (contraction for HAVE) are often
Law #5: OF/ ‘VE  UH morphed into an UH sound.
Examples: Kind of = kinda/uh, Could’ve = Coulda/uh
8 The NT sound is often flattened in North American
Law #6: N. American Flattening of NT English.
 Example: Internet = innernet
9 One of the most common sounds in American English is
Law #7: Whuh-duh-yuh….? “whu-duh-yuh,” which is often a fast speaking reduction
for uses in 3 main verb tenses:
Examples:
(1) simple present- what do you do,
(2) what are you doing
(3) what have you been doing
10 How natives often omit certain words from speech (“are
Native Omissions & you okay?” or “do you wanna go?”) and random
Random Tendencies connection tendencies (let me= “lemme”, give me=
“gimme”).
11 How native speakers often don’t pronounce the T with
The Stop T & Glottal T the tip of the tongue in words like “fountain, mountain”
or even “what” or “can’t.”
12 More practical everyday example sentences integrating
Practice & Integration the first 11 lessons in more challenging combinations.
13 More practical everyday example sentences integrating
Practice & Integration the first 11 lessons in more challenging combinations.
14 More practical everyday example sentences integrating
Practice & Integration (Final Test) the first 11 lessons in more challenging combinations.
15 Introduction into the International Phonetic Language
IPA Introduction (IPA) which will be used in season 2 of Fluent with
(no soundcloud feedback) Friends. *This part will probably not have soundcloud
feedback.
16 Introduction into the International Phonetic Language
IPA Introduction (IPA) which will be used in season 2 of Fluent with
(no soundcloud feedback) Friends. *This part will probably not have soundcloud
feedback.

Each lesson has 4 Core Components:

 Short PDF Lesson teaching the material, as well as a writing assignment and/or listening
exercises / key (answers to the exercises).
 Supplementary Assignment: Links to 1 or more articles, videos, and podcasts to supplement the
teaching
 Core Pronunciation Practice MP3 for listen and repeat integration. Recorded by Justin, and
often using media (from Friends and/ or popular songs).
 Soundcloud Feedback Assignment: you will record your voice and send/ submit the recording
to us to receive our feedback (and sometimes links) about what you can improve. Weeks 15 & 16
will not include this.
Notes:
 Depending on your native language, your English level, and your main problems, some weeks will
be lighter, and may be easy for you, while others will surely be more difficult.
 Remember, this is not a general pronunciation course, there are plenty of resources out there for
that, and we will provide links on the supplementary resource list.
 This course will teach what almost no other course teaches, and that is to listen and imitate how
native speakers cut, connect, and eat their words.

Make Sure You Know The Basics

For optimal performance in this course, make sure you have a good understanding and use of more
fundamental aspects pronunciation:
 Competent pronunciation of the alphabet
 Competent abilities with the main vowel sounds
o Listen & Practice pronunciation with ShiporSheep.com
o Short vs Long Vowel Songs

The Fundamentals: Right Mindset, Right Lifestyle, Open to Feedback

The Deep Pronunciation Course is going to be a huge push for your pronunciation and ability to connect
your words like a native speaker, but your results will be much bigger and permanent if you integrate a
few other pillars to success:

 MINDSET: As we talk about in the introduction video (from the webinar) and in this podcast, if
you believe that your pronunciation or fluency ability are fixed, that good pronunciation is
determined by age or natural ability, then your potential is severely limited. Your beliefs, more
than anything else, affect your results.

You need to have a growth mindset, which is to persevere, accept criticism, to see this as a process,
and above all, to see success as a product of hard work and constant learning and adaptation. You
need to not only become a master of your own habits, but also master of sound.

One very key, but nearly universally overlooked, component of your pronunciation training is the
act of physically and mentally exercising your ability to imitate the sounds that native speakers.

Just like going to the gym to work out your muscles, you need to work on your muscles of
articulation every single day. It’s not just in your brain, it’s in your mouth, in your muscle memory,
and in the amount of time you spend practicing and refining your awareness of how it works.

 LIFESTYLE ENGLISH: Another super key component is to practice and use English a lot in your
normal everyday life.
 If you haven’t already, the first thing you can do is build a constant stream of native speaking
audio input into your life. If you are watching and practicing with Fluent with Friends every week,
that’s even better. Also, check out RealLife Radio, our podcast.

Also, speak as much as you can, with natives and/or non-native speakers. If you can find natives,
great, but speaking with a non-native is far better than not speaking at all. Just make sure you fill
your life with native-speaking input!

 IMITATION & REPETITION: Finally, one of the greatest ways to constantly imitate and program
your mind and mouth to connect your words is to SING in English. The only way to constantly
improve and maintain high levels of pronunciation mastery is to open your mouth and make
repetition a constant part of your life.

One of the biggest challenges to doing this is the challenge of building daily habits that make this
repetition permanent. But, as you’ll discover in the Deep Pronunciation Course, if you know how
to use it, music seems to be one of these beautiful shortcuts that can be a lifelong ally to perfecting
your pronunciation.

 HEARING YOUR OWN VOICE/ INTEGRATING FEEDBACK: It’s important to recognize that most
people don’t like hearing their own voice, and then to hear it in a second language is even harder
and more painful. So, you will be getting used to your voice on 3 levels.

The first level is just hearing your voice, even in your native tongue. The second level is to accept
the way you sound in English, your second language, and be okay with that. And the third level is
to deal with various levels of feedback in a way that leads to action and improvement.

Yes, that means accepting your current level, having the courage to speak anyway, but at the same
time, recognizing that there is a need to improve, and building the discipline and perception to do
that. If you attune your ear to what’s right and wrong and can improve upon that, you will be able
to direct your own feedback for the majority of your mistakes.

And apart from helping you drastically improve your pronunciation in this 16 week duration of
this course, the main goal is to help you develop the mindset, perception, and tools to guide your
own process so that you don’t need a native speaker to continue improving afterwards.

Some Top Pronunciation Resources

As we build this course, we’ll probably include many of these resources in your list of assignments, but
let’s just start by sharing our favorite pronunciation resources out there.

 RealLife English Pronunciation Articles

 Rachel’s English
 Jennifer’s Pronunciation
 Fluency MC
 Idahosa Ness- The Mimic Method
 Coach Shane’s Pronunciation