Add Specific Sounds to Your Practice
Create your own speech practice sentences with ChatGPT to focus on specific sounds.
Make Practice Specifically For You
You know I use ChatGPT a lot and am always looking for ways I can help people practice speaking skills. Today, I want to share how I’ve been using it to create speech practice prompts for any profession or situation that include specific sounds for focused pronunciation practice. I also created a reference sheet so you don’t have to know the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). You’ll use words and examples from your real life to make your practice more relevant, realistic, and useful.
What’s a “Prompt”?
A “prompt” is the instruction you enter into ChatGPT or any AI to get the result you’re looking for.
In this prompt, I’m asking for sentences, but you can also ask for a “dialog” (or “conversation” or “role-play”) and it will create a conversation if you give it instructions for who is speaking. It’s helpful to create different speaking situations, such as “create a dialogs for a biologist talking with a colleague, the CEO of the company, and a client who isn’t in the same field.”
General Prompt to Generate Sentences
If you’re not interested in asking for specific sounds to practice, you can use the general prompt. Copy this and insert your specific job title, speaking situation, and words you usually use in that situation.
"Give me 10 natural-sounding sentences that a [job title] might say in this situation [give specific example such as - “speaking to a patient who has heart disease”].
Use these words if possible: [insert your words here].
Make the sentences sound real, short, and relevant to my job."
Prompt That Includes Specific Sounds
Step 1: Choose the Sounds You Want to Practice
ChatGPT (and I’m sure the other AI options) hasn’t been so good at recognizing the IPA symbols for sounds. The reason we have the IPA, the “International Phonetic Alphabet” is to create a one-to-one relationship for spelling and sound.
English has so many different pronunciation possibilities for the letters we use. There are 6 vowel letters: a, e, i, o, u, y but 15 vowel sounds.
In my experience, even consonant sounds have been confusing for AI. When I ask it for words containing the /s/ sound, it doesn’t include words where the letter “c” sounds like /s/, as in “city,” and it includes words where the letter “s” doesn’t sound like /s/ but like /z/, as in “dogs.”
ChatGPT is getting better at using IPA symbols but still needs some examples. That’s why I made this spreadsheet with the IPA symbols and example words. Copy the Google sheet or download it. I left space for you to add your own words that will help you remember sounds in initial, middle, and final positions of words.
Examples:
The 'th' sound /θ/ as in “think”
The 'l' sound /l/ as in “full”
The vowel sound /æ/ as in “cat”
The 'r' sound /r/ as in “red”
You can stop there and try that level of instruction or you can consider what position in the word you’d like to practice specific sounds in. Pronouncing sounds at the beginning of words is usually easier than in the middle or at the end, so be specific about what position you want to practice that sound in.
Example:
The 'th' sound /θ/ in initial position, as in “think”
The 'l' sound /l/ in final position, like at the end of “full”
The vowel sound /æ/ in middle position, as in “cat”
The 'r' sound /r/ after a consonant, like in “break” or “drive”
Step 2: Choose a Real-Life Context
What kind of situation are you practicing for?
Nurse in the ER
Weekly status report in the lab
Meeting with your child’s teacher
Interview for a job in _____
Meeting a friend for lunch
Step 3: Make a Short Vocabulary List
If you are already aware of words that you’d like to practice, you can list some you actually use in that situation. These should be words you want to pronounce more clearly, confidently, or correctly. You can also give some example sentences that you know you use.
Step 4: Use This Prompt Template
Copy and paste this into ChatGPT and add your specific job title, situation, sounds you want to practice, and words you usually use:
"Give me 10 natural-sounding sentences that a [job title] might say in this situation [give specific example such as - “speaking to a patient who has heart disease”]. I want to practice these sounds:
- The 'th' sound /θ/ in initial position, as in “think”
- The 'r' sound /r/ in final position, like “car”
- The vowel sound /æ/ in middle position, as in “cat”
Use these words if possible: [insert your words here].
Make the sentences sound real, short, and relevant to my job."
Then What? Practice
Highlight or bold the sounds you want to focus on in each sentence so they stand out when you read it out loud.
Say the sentences out loud and record yourself. Listen to the recording.
Say the same sentence in different emotions.
Turn sentences into questions (WH-questions go down in pitch from beginning to end, yes/no questions go up in pitch from beginning to end).
Use the same prompt again with different vocabulary or speaking situations.
Cut and paste words or short phrases into Youglish to see if there are videos of other people using them in videos: https://youglish.com/ Remember to slow down the speed to hear the details of pronunciation of specific sounds.
Cut and paste the sentences it creates into a text-to-speech tool such as:
Google docs can read your text to you with Gemini. If you don’t see it on your toolbar, go to Tools → Audio → Listen to this tab
The AI voices may not be the best examples of intonation, but the pronunciation is more reliable.
Download the spreadsheet with the IPA symbols and example words. Copy the Google sheet or download it. I left space for you to add your own words that will help you remember sounds in initial, middle, and final positions of words.