When you are speaking American English it is really important to recognize the difference between voiced sounds and voiceless sounds! A voiced sound causes your vocal chords to vibrate. A voiceless sound does not cause your vocal chords to vibrate. American English has 8 voiced/voiceless consonant pairs such as /z/ & /s/ and /v/ & /f/. Here are a couple of examples:
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Accent reduction instructors like to say that “T is for Trouble”. That’s because the letter T has several different sounds when you are speaking American English. The American T is one consonant that most of my accent reduction coaching clients need help with. Listen to this great story on Voice of America’s Special English to
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Many non-native English speakers have problems pronouncing the American consonants /r/ and /l/. Since /r/ and /l/ are found at the beginning and end of many English words it is important to pronounce these sounds correctly. Here are a few tips you can use to make these sounds. Making the /r/ sound To make the
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Do you ever feel like the English spelling system does not match the sounds of spoken American English? It seems that way doesn’t it? English spelling is the way that words are written using the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. Since English is not a phonetic language there is not always a one-on-one relationship
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The American English r is a very difficult sound for many non-native speakers to articulate correctly! The American English r sounds like /ɚ/. The sound is made by bunching the middle of the tongue high in the back of the mouth and rounding the lips. The tip of the tongue curls up a bit, but
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In spoken American English there are many pairs of consonant sounds that are articulated using the same tongue and mouth shape. The difference between these pairs of sounds is that one sound is voiced and the other is voiceless. Voiced sounds cause the vocal chords to vibrate. Voiceless sounds are softer and do not cause
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In spoken English consonant and vowel sounds change depending on their location in a word or phrase. Learning some of the rules or patterns for these types of sound changes can make your pronunciation sound more natural. Here is one pattern. When a /d/ sound is followed by a /y/ sound the result is a
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Several of the students that I work with in my accent reduction coaching program have trouble hearing the ed that comes at the end of past tense verbs. One reason why they are having this problems is that ed does not always sound like /ed/. Sometimes ed sounds like /d/ and sometimes it sounds like
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On her blog this week Lisa Mosjin, author of Mastering the American Accent writes about the pronunciation of the words months and clothes. These words contain the difficult consonant cluster th+s. She says that you should always pronounce the th + s as in words like strengths and Smiths. In order to do this you must
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Here is an accent reduction tip for Portuguese speakers who want to improve their spoken American English. Be careful when you pronounce the letter P. Portuguese speakers often pronounce the American English /p/ sound like a /b/ sound. This can be confusing to American listeners because when you do that: pill sounds like bill pull sounds like bull
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