• well educated
• professional
• career oriented
• successful

✪ Still, many of them speak English with an “accent” that American listeners find difficult to understand.✪

They are working with me in order to understand WHY American listeners don’t always understand them and to learn STRATEGIES they can use to change this.

You may have wondered why your American colleagues don’t understand you when you speak English.

In fact… at first you may not have realized that your spoken English was a problem.  Then something happened that brought this to your attention.

• Maybe your boss said that your communication skills weren’t satisfactory
• Maybe you noticed that people look away or seem confused when you are speaking to them.
• Perhaps you said a word that someone didn’t understand…so you had to spell it out.
• Perhaps people avoid you because processing your speech takes too much effort.

Here is something you’ve never learned in your home country~

You never learned how Americans listen.☝

You never learned what cues Americans need to hear in order to process and understand a message.

In my accent reduction coaching program, I teach you techniques for speaking English in a way that Americans will understand.☆

I teach you specific techniques and strategies including:

1. How to speak with the right pace.
2. How to ask questions correctly.
3. How to lengthen vowel sounds.
4. How to pronounce tricky consonant sounds.

Don’t blame yourself if you are having problems being understood. It’s not your fault that no one even taught you how Americans listen.

Many people have made huge improvements in their communication style by taking some one on one accent reduction coaching.

Learn more about the techniques you will learn and see how one on one coaching works here at my ☛ LearnAmericanAccentOnline page. All sessions are held via Skype video.

You can make changes that will allow Americans to understand you!

The Phonetics Software shows you how to pronounce all of the American English vowel and consonant sounds using audio and video samples.

The animated diagrams show you how to move your tongue and lips to make each sound.

If you are looking for software that shows you how to articulate  vowel and consonant sounds you really need to check out this free resource! ✔

The official name is Phonetics: The Sounds of American English.

Since the software uses phonetic symbols that many people are unfamiliar with, I’ve made a series of video tutorials to help people use it more easily.

You can watch these at the link below. ⬇

American English vowel & consonant video tutorials

If you found the information in this post helpful….take a second to give me a LIKE below.

Your support helps keep the information flowing. THANKS!!

What’s the difference between the words lose & loose?

Here is my step by step answer:

Phonetically, the verb lose sounds like luwze.

• The vowel sound is /uw/ as in Blue.
• The S has a /z/ sound.

Phonetically, the adjective loose sounds like luwse.

• The vowel sound is /uw/ as in Blue.
• The S has a /s/ sound.

*The /uw/ sound is much longer in the noun lose because it occurs before a /z/ sound.

✰Here are two sentences you can use to practice these words✰

1. Did the giants lo➝se the game?⤴
2. Do you have any loose change? ⤴

* Vowels that are located before a voiced consonant sound such as /z/ are articulated with extra length!

My accent reduction clients who speak Russian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese often ask me to work with them on the sounds of O.

They find the letter O rather confusing…and I totally understand why~

✰The letter O has many sounds!✰

In fact, when you are speaking American English, the letter O can sound like:

/ow/ as in Rose

• total
• notice

/ɑ/ as in Olive

• cost
• process

/ʌ/ as in Mustard

• love
• come

The double OO can sound like:

/uw/ as in Blue

• cool
• pool

/ʊ/ as in Wood

• book
• cook

/ʌ/ as in Mustard

• blood
• flood

Learning to speak using the correct sounds of O takes awareness, practice and application.

This is one of the key skills that I teach the Russian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese speakers who I work with in my coaching program.

The colors are taken from The Color Vowel Chart, a cool tool that I use in my Skype accent reduction programs.

Ready to learn more? Just follow any of the links below ⬇

If you are….it’s really important that you learn to use  voiced consonant sounds!

Let me explain what I mean…..

A voiced sound causes your vocal chords to vibrate.

A voiceless sound does not cause your vocal chords to vibrate.

TRY THIS ⇣⇣

• Put your fingers lightly on your throat & say “zoo”.
• You should feel a vibration when you say the /z/.

• Keep your fingers on your throat & say “Sue”.
• You should not feel a vibration when you say the /s/.

• Put your fingers lightly on your throat & say “save”.
• You should feel a vibration when you say the /v/.

• Keep your fingers on your throat & say “safe”.
• You should not feel a vibration when you say the /f/.

American English has many voiced consonant sounds; there are 15, to be exact. But many non-native speakers never learned to say these sounds with the correct voicing.

When you say these sounds incorrectly, it contributes heavily to your foreign accent. When American English speakers don’t hear those sounds…they won’t always understand what you are saying!

How can you learn to articulate voiced consonant sounds?

An excellent & very affordable book for learning to use these sounds is:

Pronunciation Pairs Student’s Book with Audio CD

I used this book when I taught pronunciation classes in Minneapolis &  Washington, DC. It’s easy to use, with lots of pictures & diagrams.

To learn MORE TIPS for clear American English, click on a link below.

And remember..don’t hesitate to invest a small amount of money to improve the way you speak! $

In order to answer that question, let’s listen to a professional actor.☝

Here’s what the actor Matthew Rhys says about mastering an American accent:

“you can nail the sound, but sometimes I think you can tell a British actor when he’s playing an American, because it’s the other things [that matter]. Rhythm and cadence and syntax [are important,] and emphasis is a massive thing. It’s those things you’re always tuning into and I’m always trying to nail.”

I want to bring your attention to three of the features of American English that Matthew mentioned.

1. Rhythm

2. Cadence

3. Emphasis

In order to sound like a native speaker, you need to master these three features of spoken English.

In my accent reduction coaching course, and here on my blog I call these features stress and intonation. ♬

Even if you say every vowel and consonant sound correctly…you won’t sound natural and native like unless you employ the proper stress and intonation when you speak.

Click on one of the links below to learn more about how using the correct stress and intonation will help you be a more fluent speaker of American English.⬇

• Improve the way they communicate in their workplace
• Improve the way they speak in everyday situations (at the market, at lunch, on the phone)

We often call the latter skill, “small talk”.

For those of you who want to improve your American English “small talk”, below is a link to some excellent everyday dialogs said with super clear North American accents.

American English Everyday Dialogs

The dialog site has some special accent tips for Russian speakers.

These are great dialogs, so be sure to check them out!

These articles cited recent research on what makes a voice sound powerful, influential and authentic.

According to research analyst Carrie Goldberger~

An energetic voice comes across to listeners as authentic, inspiring trust.. And vocal energy is easily controlled by the speaker, providing ambitious people a ready tool for advancement.

Learning to use vocal energy is a critical skill that most of my accent reduction clients learn in their courses.

☆They learn to emphasize words and vowel sounds to highlight key information. ☆They learn to use rising and falling tones that engage the listener.

☆They learn to speak English using the sounds and rhythms that Americans like to hear.

If you are concerned about the way your voice is perceived by your colleagues and coworkers, take 3 minutes to read this important article.

☛ The Sound of Your Voice Speaks Volumes

If you are a non native English speaker who wants to improve the way you speak, check out what you could learn in an accent reduction coaching course.

Many of these “IT guys” (and a few women) were in the process of MOVING UP from a programmer position … to a sales, managerial or other more interactive position. ✫

They understood that improving their spoken English would provide them with new and better opportunities.

If YOU fit this description….you need to check out my American Accent for IT Professionals Course.

In this COURSE~

1. You’ll learn to pronounce technical words such as:

• ENterprise
• INtegrate
• SOFTware
• SYStem
• deVELopment
• INterface

2. You’ll learn how to say these words clearly in well paced sentences so that Americans will understand you.

3. You’ll learn to pronounce numbers so that Americans understand you every time.

• FORdy ~ fourTEEN
• FIFdy ~ fifTEEN

4. You’ll learn to pronounce phrasal verbs frequently used in IT such as:

• logIN
• sigNOUt
• printOUt
• DOWNload

If you are an IT professional who is working towards clear spoken English, visit my my American Accent for IT Professionals Course page and take the free preview lessons.

In this very affordable course, you’ll learn to speak English clearly.

Take this step! Your colleagues and clients will stop asking you to repeat yourself. Stop by the link above and look at this specialized course.

Syllable stress involves emphasizing one vowel in a word, while reducing the sounds of the other vowels.

Some vowels are so reduced that they sound like ‘uh’ (schwa /ə/).

This week two of my clients learned the syllable stress rules for pronouncing the word Democrat and related words. Let’s take a look at those~

• Deməcra→tic              (stress the /ae/ as in Black)
• De→məcrats               (stress the /ɛ/ as in Red)
• dəmocratǝza→tion    (stress the /ey/ as in Gray)
• dəmo➝cracy                (stress the /ɑ/ as in Olive)

When you see an ➝ it means you need to emphasize the preceding vowel sound.

The /ə/ is the reduced schwa sound.

Note that I use The Color Vowel Chart to identify the 15 American English vowel sounds. You can see a link for that below⬇

If your goal is to speak American English with increased clarity and professionalism...you’ve got to learn your syllable stress patterns.

How can you learn these patterns that are so critical for a clear American accent?

1. Get an accent reduction book

2. Check out my iPad book for the American accent

3. Take an online course

4. Sign up for personal accent reduction coaching

Choose the first step that’s right for YOU ☝and get started. It’s never too late to improve the way you speak!