What is Pronounce?
Pronounce is a revolutionary headphone device which trains you to speak English naturally. Your speech will be clearer and your ability to understand English speakers will be greatly improved.
During childhood, we learn to focus our attention on the phonetic structures of our native language. This is a natural cognitive process known as ‘linguistic coding’, and is an essential stage in learning to speak.
For this reason, our brains become used to processing any language in our native language's rhythm and coding. This is precisely why a child is able to easily learn several languages – the coding is not yet firmly established.
Pronounce helps familiarise you with the rhythm and sound of the English language.
Be twice as effective
Pronounce is a patented technology based on a significant research conducted by the European Union. This study concludes that learning with a technology based on auditory perception training can reduce the time required to learn English by half.
Naturally easy to use
Pronounce corrects your voice to help you integrate the sound of the English language.
Effortless
Simply add Pronounce to your daily English work alone or with your teacher to integrate the English language.
Powerful
Speak English with Pronounce a few minutes every day to significantly improve your fluency.
Over 5,000 languages are spoken worldwide, and there are 650 consonant sounds and 180 vowel sounds. This is clear evidence of the remarkable richness of language sounds in the world around us.
Despite this, each language uses on average only 40 basic sounds, known as phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest sound unit that enables us to create a difference in meaning between two words, such as between ‘rat’ and ‘mat’, for example.
Each language is thus characterised by a small number of phonemic categories, and we perceive them as separated by clearly delineated sound breaks. These sound breaks enable us to separate the words of a phrase and deduce their meaning. Better still, this separation means we can establish a linguistic logic enabling us to anticipate the following sound and to deduce sounds that we do not hear. We do this naturally when talking on the phone or when there is interference from background noise. Some sounds we do not hear, but we are naturally able to guess what they are.
This linguistic separation varies greatly from one language to another. We assimilate it while learning our mother tongue. During our childhood we learn to select units of sound that are compatible with our linguistic environment, and to not hear those which do not form part of the phonetic structures of our social group. During the course of our development we thus become programmed with the rhythm of our own language.
It is not just by chance that we speak to a baby by overly accentuating the sounds and stretching out the words. It is what is known as ‘Motherese’.
This training soon becomes a hindrance to learning a foreign language, since rhythm and sound vary greatly from one language to another.
Pronounce is a revolutionary headphone set that combines two innovative technologies. The instantaneous processing of the vocal signal via a dynamic filter familiarises your ear with the rhythm of English. The bone-conduction earpieces (transducers) transmit the sound of your voice in a natural and optimal manner.
Bone conduction
“Cover up your ears and talk. Do you hear yourself clearly? This is due to bone conduction”. The sound of your voice is transmitted naturally by the vibration of the bones in the head. This mode of transmission is 10 times faster than in air and of far better quality. The headphone earpieces are positioned in front of the ear and transmit the sound of your voice by vibrating very lightly. In this way, you have an instantaneous and natural feedback of your own voice.
This technology is used mainly by the army to enable soldiers on mission to communicate in the field without their ears being blocked. For some years now, vibration via bone conduction has also used in the medical field. In some cases it is possible to restore hearing ability by fitting bone-conduction implants in the inner ear. The renowned Google Glass® also uses this technology
The dynamic filter
The dynamic filter is a technology used in cognitive science research to establish sound contrasts and stimulate a natural mechanism of brain focus. In short, the brain is sensitive to changes in sound occurrences that it cannot anticipate. By utilising a filter that activates and deactivates according to the rhythm of the voice, variations in sound energy are created without changing the nature of the message. These variations make it easier to assimilate a foreign language by breaking our rhythmic habits. We gradually teach our brain to assimilate other rhythms.
As each language possesses its inherent musicality and rhythm, the initial settings of the filter help the learner to assimilate the cadence of the chosen language. The Pronounce filter is programmed to facilitate the assimilation of universal English.
