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 ‘Spanish & Portuguese Speakers’
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: Don’t Drop Word Final ‘ed’
I meet many non-native English speakers who have excellent grammar. However, they do not articulate word final consonant sounds strongly enough and this contributes to their accent.
One word final sound that many people fail to articulate is the past tense ed. Failing to pronounce the ed will definitely contribute to your accent!
Most of my students [...]
American English Vowel Sounds-How Can You Tell the Difference?
Last week, I was working on vowel sound articulation with one of my accent reduction coaching students. We were working on the tense /iy/ sound in the words feet & leave and the lax /I/ sound in the words fit & live.
My student, a project manager at an international communications company, said “but Susan, I [...]
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 [...]
The Most Common Sound in Spoken English
Linguistic research indicates that the most common sound in spoken English is the schwa vowel sound. This is because native English speakers pronounce the vowels in most reduced syllables with the schwa sound. The phonetic symbol for schwa is /ə/.
Here is an example. When I say my name, Susan, the first syllable is stressed so the [...]
American English Pronunciation: Linking and Liasons
Linking happens in every English sentence. We connect two words together when the first word ends in a vowel sound and the next word begins with the same vowel sound.
that table sounds like thattable
next time sounds like nexttime
We also connect words when the first word ends with a consonant sound and the next word begins [...]
Syllable Stress Patterns: Compound Words
Those of you who read my blog frequently know that using syllable stress correctly is one of the very best ways to improve your comprehensibility when you speak English. That said, here are a few syllable stress patterns for compound words that you may find useful.
Compound nouns are stressed on the first word in the [...]
American English Pronunciation Tip-Don’t Drop Word Final Sounds!
Many non-native English speakers tend to drop word final consonants such as the S sounds in words such as: boys, washes and stops.
When you do this it contributes to your accent and it creates grammatical errors that will confuse your listeners.
Keep in mind that word final S has 3 sounds in spoken English. In the [...]
Arizona to remove teachers with heavy accents
News sources in the US have been filled with this story about the fate of teachers in the state of Arizona who speak English with heavy accents.
Many of Arizona’s teachers are native Spanish speakers who tend to mispronounce the voiced and voiceless th sounds, the /v/ sound and leave off word endings such as [...]
