The Center for Confident American English Communication

Recently a couple of people asked me about accent reduction books available on Kindle. This morning I did a search for that and I did not find anything specific for accent reduction. However, I did see Amy Gillette’s Speak English Like an American. This book is not an accent reduction book but it does teach

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I’ve noticed that many non native English speakers do not (don’t) use contractions when they speak. You should definitely try to use contractions! Why should you use contractions? Here are a couple of reasons. Using contractions will make your spoken English smoother. You’ll sound less choppy to native speakers. Using contractions will help you reduce

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Many non-native English speakers including Chinese, Vietnamese & Spanish speakers have a tendency to drop word final consonants such as the S in words such as: boys, washes and stops. Dropping word final sounds both contributes to your accent and creates grammatical errors that will confuse American listeners. Keep in mind that word final S

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This is my fourth and last post explaining why you have an accent when you speak American English. Today I am going to write about sound substitution or approximation. When  speaking English, non native speakers often substitute a sound they are familiar with from their own language for an English sound. For example, Russian speakers

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I work with many Spanish speakers in my accent reduction coaching course. A common word that they have trouble pronouncing is the word problem. The reason is this. The O in the the word problem does not sound like the O as in no or go. This O sounds like the A in the word

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When  American English speakers converse informally with friends and family they often use informal pronunciation patterns. Pronunciation and accent reduction books refer to this type of language as “reduced speech”. Reduced speech usually involves using the schwa vowel sound /ə/ for the vowels in reduced syllables. Here are a few examples: want to sounds like

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If you are a non-native American English speaker working in the medical professions you know how important it is to speak English clearly and effectively. Clear communication is absolutely vital when you are dealing with patients and colleagues. If you are a non-native American English speaker working in the medical field you may want to

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Students who are really motivated to improve the way they speak English should invest in some training. One way to do this is to buy an accent reduction book. There are several accent reduction books with CD’s that are very affordable. Here are some of the most popular choices: 1. For people who have never

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My new favorite accent reduction book for intermediate to advanced students is called Mastering the American Accent, by Lisa Mojsin. I really like the organization of topics and the American English pronunciation exercises in this book.  One of my favorite American English pronunciation books for teachers are Teaching American English Pronunciation, by Peter Avery and Susan Ehrlich. You can read

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