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/ & /p/ sounds.

There are also short lessons on the sounds of the letter A and the sounds of the letter O.  Keep in mind that the letter O very often has an /a/ sound as in olive. They missed that one and it’s a very important sound.

Anyway, it’s all free so give it a try!

American English Pronunciation Audio

If you want to buy a real course that teaches you all the American English vowel and consonant sounds, I highly recommend Charles Becker’s Best Accent Training.

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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 the workplace.

Their breakdowns in communication occur with both technical terms and in everyday phrases.

Here is some of the advice that I give them.

1. Learn to use syllable stress in technical words such as:

• ENterprise, INtegrate, SOFTware, SYStem, deVELopment & INterface

2. Learn to use sentence stress and intonation in everyday phrases such as:

• HowAReyou?  HowizGOwing?  Keeping BUSy?  Lets TALKaboudit.

If you are an IT professional who wants to improve your American English communication skills, check out my accent reduction coaching program at Learn American Accent Online.

I can help you improve the way you communicate in American English!

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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 two pronunciation audio courses online.

The first one, the American Accent Audio Course focuses on melody and American English intonation patterns.

The second one, Best Accent Training, has a combination of lessons on consonant sounds, vowel sounds, stress, liking and basic intonation patterns.

Both courses are downloadable so you can start learning right away. Both courses include downloadable pdf text files that you can use to follow along with the lessons.

I have used both courses myself and I recommend them both!

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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 around the world how to teach American English pronunciation, I always recommend that they use this tool.

The Color Vowel Chart newsletter for this month has a feature article written by me. In the article I explain how to use the Color Vowel Chart to teach a very difficult topic: vowels + /r/.

You can sign up for the newsletter here-Color Vowel Chart Newsletter

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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 use these pitch or intonation patterns you could risk confusing or offending your listeners.

Here are some examples of how American listeners interpret pitch patterns:

• If your pitch is very high it indicates that you are surprised.
• If your pitch is very low it could indicate that you feel angry or impatient
• If your pitch is too neutral it may indicate that you are  bored or uninterested in the conversation.

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 occurs after the /n/ sound. This is very natural in everyday conversations.

Here are some examples of words in which many Americans drop the /t/ sound.

1. winter = winner -It’s too cold here in the winner!

2. twenty = twenny- Thomas is paid tweny dollars an hour.

3. plenty = pleny -Sally has pleny of money in the bank.

4. gigantic = giganic- That mountain is giganic!

5. Toronto=Torono -Torono is an interesting city.

Sometimes the students in my accent reduction course prefer not to drop the /t/ sound and that’s OK. Americans will understand you if you articulate the /t/. However, if you want to reduce your accent and sound more natural you may want to drop the /t/ sound in the words above.

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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)
• Rehearse what you plan to say over & over until it feels natural and automatic

Public speaking for non native speakers is more difficult than it is for native speakers. That means that non native speakers need to pay extra attention to these three strategies.

Here is an excellent short article from the Wall Street Journal on voice and preparation techniques for public speaking. While the article is not about reducing an accent, many of the speaking strategies are the same.

Voice and public speaking

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The letter A can sound like:

1. /ae/ as in black
2. /ey/ as in gray
3. /a/ as in olive
4. or it can have a reduced schwa sound /ə/

My accent reduction clients tell me that knowing which sound to use is one of the hardest things to learn about spoken English.

The tool that I use to teach my clients about the vowel sounds is called the Color Vowel Chart. This chart was developed by a couple of very innovative American English pronunciation teachers. You can check it out here.

The Color Vowel Chart

If you teach American English pronunciation you will really appreciate this tool.

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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 mustard
love
some
one, once

/uw/ as in blue
do
move, remove
lose

/er/ as in purple
work
worry
world

This O is a tricky vowel to master, but you can get specific audio lessons on all of the sounds of O in Charles Becker’s excellent Best Accent Training course.

In Lisa Mosjin’s book, Mastering the American Accent, she has an entire section dedicated to the “Problematic O”. Here’s the link to Mastering the American Accent

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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 on the sounds of consonants and vowels.  If you are a teacher or a student of American English pronunciation take a look, you’ll learn a lot!

English pronunciation and the IPA

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