The Center for Confident American English Communication

When I work with my accent reduction coaching clients, I always make sure to provide them with a solid foundation of the American English vowel sounds. Note that I said vowel SOUNDS! This is important! ✔ Many people (both native & non-native speakers) are unaware that the 5 vowel letters, a, e, i, o &

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One of the most important English pronunciation skills that I teach my clients is how to use syllable stress. For those of you who are just beginning to improve your pronunciation, here are 3 easy rules that you can use to apply syllable stress correctly when you speak.   1. Compound nouns are stressed on

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Many American English pronunciation courses teach you how to articulate the individual vowel & consonant sounds. Some of these are: /ɛ/, /ǝ/, /æ/ & /ð/. Learning to articulate vowel and consonant sounds correctly is very, very useful and will help you say words more clearly.✔ However, learning to use American English stress and intonation patterns

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This week several of my clients asked me about the rules for using reduced speech. This is an important question! First of all, what is reduced speech? In spoken American English, reduced speech is the way that native speakers compact words together. This often involves linking and using the schwa vowel sound. Native speakers like

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This week many people have contacted me to ask about the schwa vowel sound. This VERY COMMON vowel sound is found in both American and British English. The symbol for schwa is /ə/. The sound it makes is a weak “uh”. While this little “uh” may not seem like an important sound, it is…in fact

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Why is English so difficult to pronounce? There are many, many reasons for this! This article published in the American Enterprise Institute Magazine explains three of the biggest reasons that English is so difficult to pronounce. Here is my summary: 1. English spelling and pronunciation are not well coordinated. There are more sounds than letters…and one letter

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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 /ǝ/ is the relaxed vowel sound that is frequently used for vowel sounds in unstressed syllables. The schwa sound is made with your tongue in a

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Over the years I have found that many of my clients’ pronunciation problems occur because of spelling. What? It’s true. The reason is this- in American English there is not a one-on-one relationship between letters in the alphabet and spoken sounds. Think about it…do you find yourself wondering why… the letter S often soundz like

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Good listening skills are one of the first steps to changing your accent! One key step in improving your accent is learning to notice American English speech sounds and patterns. For example: I typically find that my accent reduction clients are not aware of the schwa vowel sound. This is the reduced vowel sound found

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The Merriam-Webster English Learner’s Dictionary has a excellent section called Perfect Pronunciation. You can use the exercises in Perfect Pronunciation to practice difficult vowel sounds and consonant sounds. You can also use it to practice syllable stress and sentence stress. Merriam-Webster’s Perfect Pronunciation ×