February 11, 2009 by Vincent

Get Your Pronunciation Right

With the wide range of information on the internet, it is no surprise to discover new words or terms every now and then, in your own language or otherwise. However, some words are not meant to be pronounced as it looks like, particularly brand names, and no one will like the embarrassing moment when you pronounce a word wrong in public (unless you don’t realize).

Forvo is a brilliant website intending to bring people from all over the world to pronounce as many words as they can, in any language. This way, you can learn how people from the rest of the world pronounce a word with different accent.

You can easily listen to pronunciations from different user by clicking on the “Play” buttons on the embedded Google Map.

Each pronunciation can be rated on a scale of 1 to 5. Low rated pronunciation will be hidden to avoid confusion, but you can have them shown in a button click. You can also add your own pronunciation by signing up for a Forvo account.

Besides, you can also add a word that is not already in Forvo’s database, so that someone else will pronounce it for you, or you can pronounce it yourself.

Forvo is good for its policy of accepting just any words in any language into its database, including foul languages—and just anyone can contribute by recording their own pronunciation.

In a case that you do not fully trust user-generated pronunciation for an English word that is in dictionary, you can try these online dictionaries for cross-checking:

• h o w j s a y . c o m
• MSN Encarta Dictionary
• Merriam-Webster
• The Free Dictionary
• YourDictionary.com

For IT terms pronunciation, try this one.

#forvo#pronounce#pronunciation#Web App