Abstract

The article attempts to explore the difficulties in pronunciation of English dental fricatives by Slovak EFL university students. The primary objective of the study is to examine to what extent Slovak university students mispronounce [θ] and [ð] and which sounds act as substitutes for the two consonants. A total of 44 Slovak first-year university students whose major was Teaching English Language and Literature delivered unprepared English monologues, which were recorded on a computer. Subsequently, the files were sent to an English native speaker from Canada who performed an auditory analysis of pronunciation errors in the participants’ utterances. The results indicate that English dental fricatives pose problems for Slovak EFL learners since a considerable number of participants mispronounced both voiced and voiceless dental fricative consonants. Finally, the study emphasizes the immense significance of pronunciation instruction as this area still appears to be rather neglected in the context of English language teaching in Slovakia.

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