Intonation is the change in pitch in a persons voice as they pronounce syllables , words , and phrases.

Phonetic pronunciation is physical pronunciation. To improve your phonetic pronunciation you need new muscle learning ( your muscle control your articulators.

Intonation can go up ( rising intonation), go down ( falling intonation ), or stay flat.

Intonation gives a spoken language its music. When intonation patterns are used repeated by a large group of people ( cultural habit ), then intonation becomes a melody that everyone is familiar with and accepts ( dialect ).

INTONATION

Intonation is cultural pronunciation. To improve your intonation you need new cultural learning.

You will have to decide if your accent is getting in the way of your spoken communications.

There are two parts to conversation.Speaking is one part. The other part is listening. You have to be able hear and recognize the intonation of other speaker, if you want to understand what they are trying to say. For example, American have cultural habit of using intonation to change the literal meaning ( dictionary definition) of the words and phrases that they are pronouncing. Americans will use intonation to add emotion or attitude to what the say instead of using different words. If you want to understand what an American is saying then sometimes you have to look past to dictionary definition of the words that they are using and instead listen to their intonation.

Intonation Patterns. There are three basic pitches in English normal, high, and low. There are also very high pitch, which is used to express strong emotion such as surprise , anger, or fear. The normal pitch is where the voice usually is. High is where the voice rises to indicate information focus. Low is where the voice falls, usually at the end of sentences. In most conversation the voice is normal at the beginning of the sentences, rises at the information focus word (or syllable), then falls back to normal, and drops to low at the end the sentences. The intonation pattern for statement, commands, and HW questions is basically the same- the voice starts as normal pitch, rises at the intonation focus word, falls back to normal after the intonation focus word, and falls to low at the end of the sentences. With yes/no questions and requests, the pitch starts at normal and rises at the end of the sentences.