Welcome back! Have you checked out my Accent Reduction classes yet? Most non-native English speakers have problems articulating the two ‘th’ sounds that we use so frequently in in spoken American English.
Here is a link to a lesson on the 2 ‘th’ sounds. At the end of the lesson is an audio practice activity that [...]
Posts under ‘Pronunciation Exercises’
American English Audio Lesson: The 2 Sounds of TH
Accent Reduction Techniques for Spanish Speakers
Spanish speakers frequently drop the consonant sounds at the ends of words. This can cause your speech to sound both accented and grammatically incorrect.
If you are a Spanish speaker, here is one technique you can use to reduce your accent.
Words in Spanish do not typically end in a consonant clusters but English words frequently do. [...]
American English Pronunciation: The /iy/ and /I/ Sounds
One of the American English vowel sounds that non-native speakers frequently mispronounce is the /iy/ sound as in the word sheep.
They frequently shorten this sound so that it sounds more like the /I/ sound as in the word ship.
This means that when non-native speakers (especially Spanish & Portuguese speakers) say the word cheap, it sounds [...]
Improve Your English Pronunciation with Popular Songs
Using songs is an effective and fun way to improve your spoken English. This is a fun and energizing way to improve both listening and pronunciation.
One thing that I like to do in my American English pronunciation classes is sing popular songs with the students. This helps them with English rhythm, linking and intonation.
Carolyn Graham’s [...]
Pronunciation Practice Technique: Rehearse
One way to practice your American English pronunciation is to rehearse. This is what I mean.
Before going into a situation where you know you will be conversing with native English speakers, predict how the conversation might proceed. Depending on the context you should be able to anticipate many of the words and phrases that you [...]
IPA for American English
Many of you have written and asked me questions about the IPA and how to read phonetic transcriptions of English words.
I did some searching on the web and found this page from the Antimoon site. The page shows you how to read and write phonetic transcriptions. Each word and transcription has an audio recording using [...]
American English Pronunciation Practice-Mirroring
Lots of people will tell you to watch American television shows to hear authentic examples of American English. That’s an excellent idea but you can take it a step further to get some serious pronunciation practice.
Instead of simply watching your show, choose a character to imitate. As soon as your character starts to speak, try [...]
Free American English Audio
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
Related posts
American English Audio for Listening & Speaking [...]
The Best Online Dictionary for American English Pronunciation
Lots of my students have asked me what the best online dictionary is for learning to pronounce American English words. I like to use http://dictionary.reference.com/ because they show both the spelled pronunciation and the IPA spelling.
The audio is not terrific though.
The Merriam-Webster ESL Learner’s Dictionary has a great section called Pronunciation Exercises that I frequently [...]
