how to improve your Spanish PRONUNCIATION

Hola, 

My name is Laeticia. I hope everybody is doing well. I've been starting Rocket Spanish for a while. Do you guys know any effective ways to enhance/ improve Spanish pronunciation? 

Thanks in advance. 

Rocket Language course lessons includes a feature where you can record yourself reading the text. You can then replay it along with the tutor's voice and then compare.

Wow! I did not know that, I'll have to ask my father and brother how to do that.

I think this feature is available if you use the Google Chrome browser rather than say, Safari on my Mac.  Hope this helps!

Talking with a native Spanish speaker and asking them to listen to and correct your pronunciation will help as well. Skype is good for this.

Yesterday I was listening to CNN en Español while driving as I often do. In one segment one of the speakers was a native English speaker - from the US, I presume. He was fluent in Spanish, but I could clearly hear that he was a non-native speaker: his pronunciation was just not quite natural. I hate to admit it, but I could understand almost everything that he said, and could keep up with him, whereas with most of the native speakers I can only pick out phrases and get a general idea of the subject being discussed. 

Hi Laeticia,
             I've found it's helpful to find the letters or letter combinations in the words you find most difficult and practice them separately from the rest of the word. For example, ferrocarril .  I found it difficult at first to pronounce it all at once. I chopped it in half and practiced until I could say ferro and carril  independent of one another, then tried to properly pronounce them as one. 
           For making the pronunciation of Spanish letters and words become more natural, I try to recite the alphabet in Spanish regularly. (My advice, don't stop until you feel like a child reciting their ABCs all over again. ;) )

Best of luck!
Laura

Laura: breaking words into syllables and practicing those is a great idea.

For me, as in most other things in my life, if I just s-l-o-w  d-o-w-n my pronunciation improves. WhenItalkfastmistakesjustslipby.

No kidding! Sometimes it's as if my mouth runs faster than my brain (although I hear a lot of people complain about it being the other way around!).

I agree with Dan that the best way is to converse with native speakers and have them correct you.  The Rocket Record feature can help, but is no replacement for native ears.  It's amazing what a native speaker hears as correct or incorrect in comparison with what I hear as correct or incorrect.  I'm actually taking a phonics refresher in Peru right now and it has been very helpful in tuning my tongue and my ear to the proper pronunciations.

Hefay: ¿Cuanto tiempo vas a estar en Peru, y cuanto horas por día estás estudiando español?

Dan

Más o menos 4 años.  Mis clases foneticas son 90 minutos cada día, desde lunes hasta viernes por 2 semanas.  Hay, ¿cómo se dice? uno a uno. (one on one)  Y la maestra es una ortofonista que ayuda a los niños que no pueden pronunciar bien.  Ella es una buena ayuda a mi.  Sabe cómo y dónde ponerse la lengua, etcetera.  Y poco a poco estoy mejorando.

David: Me encanta Narcos. Conozco la historia de Pablo Escobar del libro de Mark Bowden, pero la programa es muy interesante y me cae bien el actors en la serie. También me gusta escuchar del narrativo en español con los subtítulos. Otra programa que es similar me gustaba ver se llama "The Bridge" con el actor Damien Bircher y era filmado en la frontera de Texas y México.