American English Pronunciation and Accent Reduction

American English Pronunciation Audio

I was visiting the Best of the Web today and found a nice website with American English pronunciation audio files for consonant and vowel sounds. The site is called TalkEnglish.com and it has short listening and practice activities for hard to pronounce consonants such as the /r/ sound, the /th/ sound and the /b/ &

Accent Reduction for IT Professionals

In my accent reduction coaching program I’ve developed a special course for IT professionals. Many IT professionals working in the US are from India and other parts of Asia. While their technical skills are top level, their spoken English is different. This means that their clients and colleagues don’t always understand what they are saying in

American English Pronunciation Audio Course

A couple of people have emailed me this week to ask about my favorite American English Pronunciation Audio course. While audio courses for pronunciation are not nearly as effective as one on one coaching (that’s because you don’t get feedback), they do provide opportunities for independent learning and practice. I have personally bought and used

The Color Vowel Chart

When I teach my American accent clients to articulate the 15 American English vowel sounds I always use a tool called the Color Vowel Chart. This visual tool helps my clients to see and feel the American English vowels. I love the tool and so do my students and clients. When I teach teachers from

American English Intonation Patterns

Perhaps you have heard people say that intonation is the melody or the music of spoken American English. Spoken English sounds melodic because English speakers use different types of intonation or pitch patterns in phrases and sentences. These intonation patterns are extremely important because they convey meaning. If you are not aware of how Americans

Accent Reduction Tip-The Dropped T Sound

My accent reduction clients are often surprised to learn that English is not always pronounced the same way that it’s written. This discrepancy creates many pronunciation problems. One letter that does not always sound the same way it is written is the letter T. In fact, American English speakers frequently drop the /t/ sound altogether when it

Public Speaking for Non Native Speakers

I often find that the strategies that I teach for accent reduction and the strategies that I use as a Toastmaster (I’ve earned my CC & ACB awards) overlap. For both accent reduction and effective public speaking you need to: Warm up your voice Prepare your material with marks for emphasis, pauses & stops (breathing)

American English Sounds & Spelling

One of the most confusing aspects of spoken English is the lack of uniformity between spelling and sounds. For example: The letter A can sound like: /ae/ as in black /ey/ as in gray /a/ as in olive or it can have a reduced schwa sound /ə/ My accent reduction clients tell me that knowing

The American English O Sound

Many of my accent reduction clients get confused about how to pronounce the letter O in American English. The O has at least five different sounds in spoken English. Here are a few examples: /ow/ as in rose mobile home phone /ɑ/ as in olive content (n ) process, processor problem, problematic /ʌ/ as in

English pronunciation & the IPA

Gabe from towerofbabelfish.com just sent me his video tutorial on the IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet. If you’ve been wondering how the IPA works to describe the sounds of words you’ll be very pleased with the content of this video. This is just the first of a series of videos that he plans to record