Most CHinese / Malay students including myself have difficulty in accurate English pronounciation . How to mitigate this problem ?

stop talking with manglish. when speaking english use full english sentences. when speaking chinese use full chinese sentences same with malay tamil or whatever. when you mix languages in a sentence the accents will transfer across. and also when you know that the word sounds strange. say it again and again with whatever accent you want. british or american. i have an american accent. i think its better hehe. considering every other person in malaysia has an UK accent hahaha.

yes, copy cat. that's the most basic and efficient way of improving your english communication skill. watch lots and lots of English movies and learn how they talk. copy them.

No need to care so much about accurate pronunciation. Make sure that you can transfer you message to another person clearly and just use whatever accent you want to (as long as it is clear). It is not necessary that for us to follow the UK or US style pronunciation even they are considered as standard English pronunciation. Until we can make sure that they can get the message, then spend the time on improving pronunciation.

Read more books, newspaper(The Star recommended), speak often even broken english coz you will learn and improve, write english often, listen to english songs and sing along with the lyrics,buy more english grammar books, take part time course for english, etc. hope it helps.

Lazy want to read everything so I'll just post my experience mastering English here:

Phase 1:
1. Strengthen your vocab. You need to increase the number of English words you know.
Start by reading The Star. Write down every word you don't know in your vocab book. Get a good dictionary. I'll recommend Oxford's Advanced Learner's Dictionary. This process will be very painful in the beginning. You may find up to 5, 10 words or more per article. (Most people give up at this stage)

I still have my old vocab book. It's evolved a lot for the past 10 years. I can see my vocab really grow a lot, as much as I did. From Standard 5 to Year 2 uni now. I'm still adding words to it.

2. Speak English more often. Mix with English-speaking people who will not laugh at you. You need a lot of ballz here. Very painful process too. But you will learn very very fast if you muka tebal banyak.

Phase 2:
1. Once you can understand most words in the newspapers easily (maybe only learn 1 or 2 words per article), you can now start reading books. Try the classics. Treasure Island, Moby d*** (why is it censored!?), Sherlock Holmes, Around the World in 80 Days, etc. You will find learning new words here enjoyable. You will notice that you make less and less grammatical errors when you write at this stage.

2. Speak more English with others, watch more English language movies/shows. You should be able to catch up much faster now.

Phase 3:
1. You should enter essay-writing competitions. But I didn't do it. I had my share of writing in Englist, EST, MUET, etc.

2. Enter public speaking competitions. This stage will push you to your limits. Need the most amount of ballz here. No matter you win or lose, the experience you gain will be invaluable.

If you do all of the above, minimum you'll have fluent mastery of English, and maximum, beyond native mastery. This is what I went through personally. And one of the rewards is a Band 6 in MUET (Not to boast, but to lend some credibility to this post). It's a very painful 10-year+ process but it's extremely rewarding. And I'm still learning. TS can stop at any stage he wants. Or ignore this post.

This post has been edited by Tangiers: Dec 16 2008, 02:27 AM

For Me..
i watch alot of english movie,tv show..
Or, i watch CHINESE movie or tv show n read the subtitle..
my english do improve by doing that..
^^,..

p/s: playing alot of international online game help me too~!!

start playing RPG's. that should help right?

If it is MMORPG, make sure you learn your English from those who type well. No Manglish/Singlish/any form of "rojak" including international players.

This post has been edited by IamjustME: Dec 16 2008, 05:53 PM

no i mean like a normal rpg like final fantasy or what not. lot of english reading and speaking.

To be honest mate, read british magazines of what you like (PC gamer and such)

Or, you could watch british television a lot. This is simply because British TV and magazines have proper and fundamental grammar.

For me, I just watch Top Gear alot and read Jeremy Clarkson's articles. (Fan of the man and cars in general)

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Added on December 16, 2008, 6:06 pmTo be honest mate, read british magazines of what you like (PC gamer and such)

Or, you could watch british television a lot. This is simply because British TV and magazines have proper and fundamental grammar.

For me, I just watch Top Gear alot and read Jeremy Clarkson's articles. (Fan of the man and cars in general)

This post has been edited by Grizzie: Dec 16 2008, 06:06 PM

are we supposed to compare the two posts and look for "hidden" errors? ...

Yeah, that is just part of the steps to improve English.

When I was a child, my parents never taught me how to speak English. I learnt myself. Watching english movies, comics, songs, news and many more.

Now, the only way I can conversate english is with my boss or when i have to call a customer. But that really helps me alot.

Anyway, you must have a big passion on it.

learn iTunes Podcast

keyword = BBC

i think any podcast will do wont it. read a comic book. read playboy. any form of correct grammar book. kids books. shopping books. the ikea cataloge heheh. anything with sentences.

interact more, by working partime in shopping complex such as pavillion.

talk to customer more, slowly will increase your confidence.

might be hard, but no harm giv a try during sem break.

or hang out with eng-ed fren.

hahaha then u will learn words like Dexterity, Alchemist, Combo, Peasant etc... can imagine u write essays with that!

history essays? hahah. i think it would be good. play a modern day RPG. heh.

read more, speak more and listen more. mix more with english educated student so that u can only speak english with them rather than chinese. After a period you will find yourself better . You can take up english courses as well. but u need to pay some money for the courses. that way it will improve faster if you learn and try to use it. plus do what i told you earlier. then you english will improve in no time.

Reader's Digest is your best friend.