There are many English words spelled with the letter o in which the o is pronounced like /ɑ/ as in the word father.
To make the /ɑ/ sound relax your lips and your tongue. Your tongue should be low in your mouth when you articulate this sound. Here is a list of words in which the letter o has an /ɑ/ sound.
1. hot
2. lot
3. stop
4. job
5. office
6. modern
7. confident
8. clock
9. dollar
10. doctor
To see the detailed articulation of this sound go to the University of Iowa Phonetics site and choose Vowels, Monothongs, Back.
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English vowel sounds, Learn American Accent, Russian Speakers, South Asian Language Speakers, chinese speakers.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · american accent · American English Pronunciation · american english vowels · learn american accent
In spoken English consonant and vowel sounds change depending on their location in a word or phrase. Learning some of the rules or patterns for these types of sound changes can make your pronunciation sound more natural.
Here is one pattern. When a /t/ or /d/ sound is followed by a /y/ sound the result is a /dʒ/ sound. This sound occurs between these words:
- could you
- would you
- can’t you
- won’t you
Don’t think that articulating every sound exactly as it is written will improve your accent. The letters in the alphabet take on many different characteristics in spoken English.
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Consonant Sounds, American English Pronunciation, Learn American Accent.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · american english consonants · American English Pronunciation · learn american accent · speak american english
If you are a frequent reader of my blog you know that one of the best ways to improve your American English pronunciation is to use syllable stress correctly.
In spoken English words with multiple syllables, one syllable is always more prominent than the others. We call this the stressed syllable.
Stressed syllables are pronounced:
with a higher pitch
a bit louder in volume
with a lengthened vowel sound
OK, so how does a person know which syllables to stress? This is a really important question! There are some patterns you can use to help you.
And remember, the vowel sounds in unstressed syllables are frequently reduced to a schwa sound. This combination of stressed and reduced syllables is key to the rhythm of spoken English!
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Pronunciation, Learn American Accent, Syllable stress.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · American English Pronunciation · learn american accent · Syllable stress
This is a nice, clean webiste that you can use to listen to and repeat American English words. I like the audio on this site because it’s easy to hear the syllable stress and the schwa sound in reduced syllables.
The site has both audio and video.
American English Audio
Posted in: American English Pronunciation, American English Pronunciation Videos, Learn American Accent, Pronunciation Exercises, american english audio.
Tagged: american english audio · American English Pronunciation · American English Pronunciation Videos · learn american accent
Several of the students that I am coaching have trouble hearing the ed that comes at the end of past tense verbs. One reason why they are having this problems is that ed does not always sound like /ed/. Sometimes ed sounds like /d/ and sometimes it sounds like /t/.
The other reason the word final ed can be difficult to hear is because native English speakers link words together so that the /d/ & /t/ sounds become part of the following word. That means that:
passed out sounds like pass dout
looked over sounds like look dover
talked about sounds like talk tabout
laughed at sounds like laugh tat
Click here to read my post on How to pronounce ed
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Consonant Sounds, American English Pronunciation, Learn American Accent, Spanish & Portuguese Speakers, chinese speakers.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · american english consonants · American English Pronunciation · chinese speakers · learn american accent · linking · spanish speakers
Do you wonder why your American colleagues don’t always understand you when you
speak English? Are you frustrated that people at work continually ask you to slow down or repeat what you said?
It’s time to stop struggling and improve your communication! You can find out why your American English pronunciation is not as effective as it could be by getting a personalized accent assessment.
Here are three reasons you should get an Accent Assessment:
- You will learn WHY American English speakers don’t understand you.
- You will be learn specific techniques you can use to address your pronunciation problems.
- You will receive lessons & resources you can use to study and improve your pronunciation.
I will be starting to do more Accent Assessments starting February 1st. Click on the link above to sign up or find out more.
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Pronunciation, accent assessment.
Tagged: accent assessment · Accent Reduction Techniques · learn american accent · learn american english pronunciation
This is my fourth and final post explaining why you have an accent when you speak American English. Today I am going to write about sound substitution or approximation.
When they are speaking English, non native speakers often substitute a sound they are familiar with from their own language for American English sounds.
For example, Russian speakers often substitute the /v/ for /w/ so that the word wine sounds like vine. French speakers typically substitute a /z/ sound for the voiced th sound so that the word these sounds like zese. People from many languages substitute the /iy/ sound for the /I/ sound so that cheap sounds like chip.
There are many books and audio courses that focus on articulating vowel and consonant sounds correctly. I review the best selling products at my Confident Voice Bookstore.
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Pronunciation, Books & CDs.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · American English Pronunciation · Books & CDs
This is Part 3 of a series of posts that describe why you have an accent when you speak American English.
In the past two posts I wrote about syllable stress and the duration of vowel sounds. Today I will write about voiced and voiceless consonant sounds.
Using voiceless consonant sounds instead of voiced consonant sounds at the end of words will contribute to your accent. Here is what happens-
Non native English speakers frequently pronounce the word final /g/ as a /k/ so that the word dog sound like dock. Or they pronounce the word final /z/ as /s/ so that the word peas sounds like peace.
Learning to used voiced consonants at the end of words (and lengthening the vowel sounds that come before these) will help you avoid these types of mistakes and reduce your accent.
Tomorrow I will finish this series by talking about sound substitution.
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Consonant Sounds, American English Pronunciation, voiced & voiceless sounds.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · American English Pronunciation · S & Z sounds · voiced & voiceless sounds · voiced consonant sounds
This week I am writing about factors that contribute to accented speech. Yesterday I wrote about syllable stress and intonation. Today I will talk about lengthening your vowel sounds.
When you are speaking American English you must lengthen the duration of vowel sounds in stressed syllables. You must also lengthen vowels that come before voiced consonant sounds such as /z/ and /d/.
Many non native speakers say the vowel sounds in stressed syllables and before voiced consonants with a short duration. If you do that it will cause communication problems and make your speech sound choppy to American listeners.
You can read more about this on my post titled: Voiced & Voiceless Sounds in American English.
Posted in: Articles.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · American English Pronunciation · american english vowels
Do you speak American English with a foreign accent? Many highly educated people read and write English perfectly. However, when they speak they have an accent that causes communication problems.
There are a number of factors that contribute to accented speech and this week I am going to describe five factors that may be causing you to have an accent when you speak American English.
Today I will talk about syllable stress and intonation.
People typically use the stress and intonation patterns from their native language when they speak American English. Since your native language uses stress and intonation differently than we do in English this will contribute to your accent. This will make your speech may sound it too choppy, too fast too flat. Learning how to speak using American English syllable stress and intonation patterns will really help you to reduce your accent sound more American.
Professor Marianne Celce Murcia, co author of Teaching Pronunciation, found that students studying American English need a balance of both sound lessons and stress and intonation lessons in order to increase their comprehensibility.
Posted in: Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Pronunciation, Syllable stress, teaching pronunciation.
Tagged: Accent Reduction Techniques · american english intonation · American English Pronunciation · Syllable stress · teaching pronunciation
