When youʼre not a native speaker of a language, itʼs sometimes hard to realize youʼre pronouncing certain words incorrectly. Colleagues are often too polite to correct every mistake, focusing instead on understanding the main message—especially within international teams where clarity takes precedence over perfection.

An effective alternative for discovering your mispronunciations is using speech recognition software on your computer or phone. If you truly want to benefit from these tools, youʼll soon notice that you need to self-correct until the software accurately understands your speech. This real-time feedback loop helps you become aware of recurring pronunciation patterns.

Translation platforms, such as Google Translate, often include vocalization features that let you hear how a word is supposed to sound. This can lead to an "eureka" moment: after a few attempts following the model pronunciation, the speech recognition finally registers the word correctly. Itʼs a small victory that builds confidence.

With more meetings now offering automatic subtitles in real time, you have another opportunity to check your pronunciation. By re-watching meetings and analyzing how the subtitles render your spoken words, you can spot which words are giving you the most trouble. Since business vocabulary tends to be relatively consistent, focusing your efforts on these challenging words pays off quickly, helping you become a more effective and confident communicator.