Many non-native English speakers including Chinese, Vietnamese & Spanish speakers have a tendency to drop word final consonants such as the S in words such as: boys, washes and stops.
Dropping word final sounds both contributes to your accent and creates grammatical errors that will confuse American listeners.
Keep in mind that word final S has 3 sounds in spoken English. In the word boys the S has a voiced /z/ sound. In the word washes the S has a voiced /ez/ sound. In the word stops the S has a voiceless /s/ sound.
Voicing is important in American English because vowels that occur before a voiced sound get extra length when you are speaking.
In my accent reduction coaching sessions I have found that my Chinese and Spanish speaking clients often have these type of pronunciation problems.
There are several great accent reduction books that you can use to learn these techniques. My favorite book for self study is called Mastering the American Accent
Tags: accent reduction books, Accent Reduction Coaching, Accent Reduction for Chinese Speakers, Accent Reduction Techniques, American English Pronunciation
