need help with german pronunciation

f140

ok have been learning german in my spare time the last few years. listening to loads of news/ reading paper online magazines, textbooks etc. my grammar is good but my pronunciation is shocking. never got that basic right. need help with how to pronounce each word for example I don't know the difference is pronunciation between schon and schön. know exactly what they mean by reading them but couldn't pronounce them properly. its come to the stage now where I am embarrassed to talk. for example I could understand most things a german would be saying but they would have trouble understanding me because my pronunciation would be off.
where do I start.

Eirien

First off, to my mind pronunciation is not such a big obstacle in communication - context usually will tell which of two similar-sounding words is the one you mean. Still, to improve your pronunciation, you'll maybe find the Forvo.com site helpful. It has loads of user-generated soundclips of words and phrases done by native speakers - real people instead of the computer-voice stuff some online dictionaries provide. I'm still not allowed to post links here (I think), but you should find this site quite easily.

ni_bheolain

Hi f140, I would try listening to German music, watching German TV/films (with subtitles turned on in German). That helped me a lot in the initial stages of learning German.