How to learn 

How to learn 

English 

English 

pronunciation

pronunciation

1.              

1.              

Learn the sounds 

Learn the sounds 

of English

of English

English uses different sounds 

than other languages. For 

example, the first sound in the word 

thin and the first sound in the word 

away are never spoken in many 

languages. 

So you have to know all the 

English sounds

. You also have 

to practice your 

pronunciation

 

— listen to English words and 

sentences, and try to repeat 

the English sounds as well as 

you can. 

2. 

2. 

Learn the 

Learn the 

pronunciation of 

pronunciation of 

English words

English words

Reading an English word does 

not tell you how it is 

pronounced

. 

This means that, generally, you 

have to learn the 

pronunciation

 of 

every word that you use. 

How can you learn the 

pronunciation of an English word? 

You can 

look it up

 in a dictionary 

and read about how it is 

pronounced

. Dictionaries tell you 

about 

pronunciation

 through a 

special system called "

phonetic transcription

". 

Phonetic transcription is written in 

a phonetic alphabet. The most 

popular phonetic alphabet is the 

International Phonetic Alphabet

 

(IPA). Antimoon has also created 

the 

ASCII Phonetic Alphabet

, which 

is suitable for typing on a 

computer. 

3. 

3. 

Choose American 

Choose American 

or British 

or British 

pronunciation 

pronunciation 

(or both)

(or both)

Different kinds of English 

have different 

pronunciation

. 

For example, the 

pronunciation

 

(the accent) in British English is 

different from the 

pronunciation

 

in American English. 

You have a choice between British English 

and American English, because these are 

the most important kinds of English in the 

world. Which one should you choose? 

Probably the kind that you like the most. 

Whether you choose British or American 

pronunciation

, people will understand you 

wherever you go. Of course, you don't 

have to decide: you can learn to speak 

both kinds of English. 

4. 

4. 

Learn about both 

Learn about both 

American and 

American and 

British 

British 

pronunciation

pronunciation

Even if you choose to speak one 

kind of English, you should 

learn about both kinds. Let's 

suppose you want to speak pure 

British English. You don't want to 

have an American accent at all. 

Should you pay attention to the 

American pronunciations in your 

dictionary? We believe you 

should. 

You may want to speak British 

English, but you will hear some 

American English, too. You may go 

see an American movie, visit the 

United States, have an American 

teacher, etc. You may want to 

speak only British English, but you 

need to understand both British 

and American English. 

Also, consider what happens if you 

(a student of British English) hear 

a new English word from an 

American? You may learn the 

American pronunciation of the 

word. And you may start using 

that pronunciation in your own 

speech. So your British English will 

no longer be pure. 

For example, if you hear the word nuke on 

American TV, it will be pronounced [nu:k]. 

If, all your life, you have been reading only 

British phonetic transcriptions, you will not 

know that many words which have the 

sound [ju:] in British English, have [u:] in 

American English. So you will probably 

learn that nuke is pronounced [nu:k]. But 

if you learn it like this, you will make your 

pronunciation "wrong", because a Briton 

would pronounce the word [nju:k]. 

Of course, the same advice is 

true if you're learning 

American English. In such a 

case, you should be 

interested in both British and 

American pronunciations, too.