Do THIS for perfect English pronunciation!

(Video Transcript)

The Backwards Trick: How to Pronounce "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"

Let’s talk about big words in English. You know the kind I’m talking about: The long, confusing words with lots of syllables, like this one: bioluminescence

And this one: ecclesiastical

And this one: saponification

And let’s not forget one of the longest words in the history of English: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".

Okay, so that word is a made-up word, and it’s from the Disney movie Mary Poppins. But you get the idea.

English has some pretty big words in it, and as those words get longer and longer, the pronunciation gets less and less clear.

Like a word such as success. This word is just two syllables, easy to pronounce. Now let’s add some suffixes to it, like successful. Successfully. Ah, now it’s a four-syllable word. But wait - we can add a prefix to it to make it even longer: unsuccessfully.

These types of long words can be so difficult to pronounce correctly. But I’ve got a trick for you that will help you to pronounce these long words perfectly, and it’s called the backwards trick. So stick around - this trick works like magic every time - and I’m going to share it with you next.

How to Pronounce Complex American English Vocabulary

Let’s start with words you’re probably familiar with. Take a look at these fairly common six syllable words:

Identification

Responsibility

Accountability

Now, say these words out loud. If these words are well-known to you, then you probably didn’t have to do anything special in order to pronounce them correctly. They’re so familiar that you’ve memorized them at this point.

But what about less familiar words, like these:

Voluminosity, Desertification, Hallucinogenic

Maybe you know these words and maybe you don’t, but let’s assume you don’t know them and you’ve never heard them pronounced before. But you see one of them in a book you’re reading, and you want to know how to pronounce it.

So you go to a dictionary, search for the word, and see this:

Helpful, yes, but you’re still struggling to pronounce it correctly. You keep placing stress on the wrong syllable. You keep saying VAHL-yoo-muh-nah-suh-dee, because the root word, volume, does have stress on the first syllable. But that’s not how this word is pronounced.

So, what do you do here? How can you break the habit of saying VAHL-yoo-muh-nah-suh-dee, , and switch your pronunciation to vuh-Loo-muh-NAH-suh-dee?

You use the backwards trick.

It works like this:

First, you spell out the word phonetically.

Then you separate out the syllables.

And you practice the pronunciation, starting with the last syllable instead of the first syllable.

Once you can say that correctly, add in additional syllables, one at a time, as you work your way to the beginning of the word.

Then say the full word, starting at the beginning.

And just like that, you’ll have said the word correctly.

Why does the backwards trick work? I don’t know. This technique really is like magic. It must be related to how the brain processes information like syllables, timing, rhythm, and stress, and it results in this backwards trick. If anyone knows the mechanism that explains why this works, please let me know in the comments.

American English Pronunciation Practice: The Backwards Trick

So let’s practice with a few of the six-syllable words I listed earlier. I’ll show you how the word is pronounced phonetically, then I’ll show you the syllable breakdown. The syllables with the primary stress will be in all capital letters; the syllables with secondary stress will have just one capital letter; and the syllables that are weak or unstressed will be in lower case.

We’ll start with the final syllable, and work our way towards the beginning of the word.

And just like that - you’ll be able to pronounce these long and confusing words perfectly.

Voluminosity: vuh-Loo-muh-NAH-suh-dee

Dee

dee

suh-dee

NAH-suh-dee

muh-NAH-suh-dee

Loo-muh-NAH-suh-dee

vuh-Loo-muh-NAH-suh-dee

Desertification: dih-Zer-dih-fuh-KAY-shin

shin

KAY-shin

fuh-KAY-shin

dih-fuh-KAY-shin

Zer-dih-fuh-KAY-shin

dih-Zer-dih-fuh-KAY-shin

Hallucinogenic: huh-Loo-sihn-nuh-JEH-nihk

nihk

JEH-nihk

nuh-JEH-nihk

sihn-nuh-JEH-nihk

Loo-sihn-nuh-JEH-nihk

huh-Loo-sihn-nuh-JEH-nihk

Thanks so much for watching this video! I hope you will use the backwards trick to help you master any tricky pronunciations you encounter, and I challenge you to use the backwards trick today as you learn a new vocabulary word. Let me know in the comments how it goes - I’d love to hear about it!

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