How to improve intonation skills with TTS software

If you are a language learner and you feel uncertain and self-conscious about their pronunciation. The cause of it may be not only incorrect pronunciation of words, but also incorrect intonation. What do we mean when speaking about intonation and why is intonation so important for those who want to improve their pronunciation skills? In linguistics, the term “intonation” can be defined as the variation of pitch of the voice when speaking. Along with word stress intonation represents a significant element of linguistic prosody. In respect of usage of intonation all languages can be divided in two large groups. The languages which use pitch to convey some ideas or concepts or to change a statement to a question are called intonation languages: English and French, for example. Some languages use pitch to recognize words: these are tonal languages: Thai and Hausa are examples. An intermediate position is occupied by languages with tonal word accent, for instance Norwegian or Japanese. So, if you want to be understood by the native speakers your intonation when asking a question or making a request should correspond to the purpose of the utterance. What are the main means of mastering intonation while teaching pronunciation? While teaching pronunciation and especially intonation it’s necessary to remember that there is no better way to achieve quick result than constant practicing. English pronunciation differs greatly from American pronunciation, and their intonation patterns can be different as well, so you should make up your mind what variant of the language you want to focus on. Then start listening to speech of native speakers as frequently as possible in order to improve your intonation skills. You may listen to radio programs, songs, watching TV shows, films and so on. But the most important is not only to listen to pronunciation, but to repeat phrases and to try to imitate the speakers. In order to make the fulfillment of these pronunciation exercises more comfortable and efficient you can use Speaking Notepad – handy teaching pronunciation software. With Speaking Notepad you can pause text reproduction at any moment and repeat a phrase as many times as you need it. Besides you can set the speed and the pitch of the voice in accordance with your level of language knowledge. And finally you can record your favorite parts of texts or dialogues to sound files and master your pronunciation skills at any time you like.

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