The Center for Confident American English Communication

When you are listening to American English speakers you may have noticed that when the letter “t” is in the middle of a word it often has a /d/ sound. Pronunciation teachers call this sound the flap or the tapped T because when we make this sound we slightly flap or tap our tongues behind

Read more →

One great way to improve your American accent is to learn how we use sentence stress in American English through the use of CONTENT, FOCUS and function words. Click on the link above to read my complete article on how Americans use sentence stress. Related posts When O is Pronounced With the /ɑ/ Sound (0) Using Nursery

Read more →

One of my students this week had a breakthrough moment when she realized that American English speakers do not pronounce every word clearly and distinctly and that using relaxed speech or “weak forms” is absolutely OK! In this text and audio from Voice of America Special English, Nina Weinstein, the author of a very popular

Read more →

Many of you have been asking me about the schwa vowel sound. Here is a brief description. The schwa sound is the most common vowel sound in North American English. The schwa sounds like “uh”. It is pronounced with the mouth very relaxed. The IPA symbol for schwa is /ə/. Below are some common words

Read more →

Take a look at my 3 strategies for improving your American English Pronunciation. This is short but sweet! Related posts When O is Pronounced With the /ɑ/ Sound (0) Reduced Speech in American Spoken English (0) Learn American English Pronunciation Using Obama’s Speeches (0) American English Syllable Stress Patterns & Schwa (0) American English Pronunciation-The

Read more →

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

Read more →

I found some interesting American English pronunciation videos developed by Sozo Exchange. These are pronunciation videos of individual English words.  First they model the articulation of the word and then they use the word in a sentence. At this time only a few of the videos that I watched use the IPA to indicate stressed syllables

Read more →

There are lots of sites on the web these days where you can find idioms with audio files. Click the link to find a comprehensive site that features 423 English idioms. This is a great tool for practicing your American English pronunciation! Practice American English pronunciation with Idioms.   Related posts When O is Pronounced With

Read more →

When you take a pronunciation or accent reduction class your instructor will teach you lots of new vocabulary to explain the pronunciation features that you must learn. Here is a mini pronunciation glossary with words that I taught the students in my accent reduction classes this month. 1. Reduced speech-The relaxed pronunciation of commonly used words and phrases

Read more →

English is not always pronounced the same way that it’s written and that is the cause of many pronunciation problems. One sound that American English speakers frequently drop is the /t/ sound. The /t/ sound is often dropped after the /n/ sound in spoken American English. This is very natural and it helps speakers to pronounce

Read more →