The Center for Confident American English Communication

Intonation refers to the rise and fall of pitch in spoken language. Intonation patterns convey meaning and emotion so it’s important to use these correctly. If you are trying to improve your American English speaking and communication skills you must learn to use the correct types of intonation. The most common type of intonation in

Read more →

Using songs is an effective and fun way to improve your spoken English. This is a fun and energizing way to improve both listening and pronunciation. One thing that I like to do in my American English pronunciation classes is sing popular songs with the students. This helps them with English rhythm, linking and intonation.

Read more →

When I was teaching one of my pronunciation classes this week I found out that my students did not know about the two different intonation patterns for questions in American English. Here they are: 1. Use rising intonation when the question can be answered with a “yes” or a “no”. 2. Use falling intonation when

Read more →

In spoken English intonation refers to the rise and fall of your pitch over the length of a thought group or sentence. Using the correct intonation is very important because the rise and fall of your pitch conveys meaning to your listeners. Many linguists say that spoken English has four levels of phonetic pitch: 1-low,

Read more →

Many American English pronunciation courses focus on how to articulate the individual vowel and consonant sounds in the language. Learning to articulate vowel and consonant sounds correctly can be very useful and will help you reduce your accent. However, learning to use American English stress and intonation patterns can really help you improve the way

Read more →