The Center for Confident American English Communication

If you learned some new American English pronunciation and accent reduction tips here on my blog why not add this blog to your bookmarks? That way you can refer to it more often AND you can help me out. Bookmarking tells the powers at Google and Yahoo that you find my information valuable. By the

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This week I received many questions about the schwa vowel sound. Let me explain a few things about this KEY English vowel sound. In spoken American English the schwa (see the image above right) is the relaxed vowel sound that is frequently used for vowel sounds in unstressed syllables. The schwa sound is made with

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Chinese speakers from Hong Kong often confuse the /n/ & /l/ sounds when they are speaking English. If you do this, it can really create confusion and contribute to your accent. Difficult words include: financial, initial, development, intelligent and negligible. There are not a lot of accent reduction books that focus on the difference between

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When I ask my accent reduction clients why they speak English so quickly, many of them say, “I always think that if I speak quickly, no one will notice my accent”. Oh, oh! That’s not true at all. If you speak English too quickly it’s probably contributing to your accent. Native speakers do say some

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How long does it take to reduce your accent? People ask me this all the time. There is no easy answer. It really depends on a variety of factors. These include: 1. Your Listening Skills You must be able to hear the difference between the sounds and patterns in your native language and the sounds

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In spoken English we stress the most important words in a sentence or phrase. Many pronunciation books refer to these as  content words and focus words. Content words are usually key nouns or verbs. Since they are important to the meaning of a sentence they are said a bit louder and longer than other words.

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Many non-native English speakers sound “choppy” when they speak American English. Choppy rhythm can create accented speech that is difficult for native speakers to listen to. One effective accent reduction technique you can use to correct choppy speech is to use linking. American English speakers link many words together, especially the smaller function words. Linking creates

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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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The letter X is often a problem for Spanish speakers. That’s because most people don’t realize that the letter X has two pronunciations.  Here are the two patterns. 1. When X is followed by a stressed vowel it is pronounced like /gz/. • exact –>egzact What’s his exact location? • exactly –>egzactly She’s exactly right.

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This week one of my accent reduction clients asked me to explain the difference between the vowel sounds in the words want & won’t. Here is my answer: The ‘a’ in want has an /ɑ/ sound. This is the same vowel sound in the word father. The ‘o’ in the won’t has an /ow/ sound.

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