Online English pronunciation exercise: Difficult first names part 1

Speaking and pronunciation of English words is the most difficult part for people learning English as a second language to do well. One group of words which is commonly mispronounced by many non-native speakers of English is people's first names.

Some first names are easy to pronounce (e.g. Sally or Peter), but there are some which are difficult to pronounce correctly (e.g. Sean or Laura.). And mispronouncing somebody's first name when speaking to them can be very embarrassing (both for you and the person you are speaking to).

To help you both learn and remember the pronunciation of the most common English first names (for both men and women) which many non-native speakers of English say incorrectly, do the below pronunciation exercise.

In this first of two exercises on pronouncing difficult first names, you will learn the correct pronunciation of 11 male and female first names. In the second part of this exercise (which is coming soon), you will learn the pronunciation of 11 more first names.

This exercise is for British English pronunciation.

To see all our online pronunciation exercises you can do, go to our 'English Pronunciation Exercises Menu'.


Exercise:

For each question in this online pronunciation exercise, first listen to the name by playing the question's audio player. Then say the name you hear. After this, spell the name in the text box and press the 'Check' button.

After you have spelt the word correctly, you should practise saying it. To do this, go to the web page of Google Translate or go to the Google Translate App on your mobile phone and practice saying the word by pressing on the microphone icon. Do it until the word you want to say is written on the screen in text.



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Now say the word you heard and then write it in the text box below and press 'Check'.

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Now go to Google Translate on your mobile phone and practise saying it until the word it writes in text is the same as this word. Don't look at the word when you say it!!!

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