Welcome back! Have you checked out my Accent Reduction classes yet? Continuing on my theme of American English vowels I’m going to write briefly on the pronunciation of the vowel combination ou.
This vowel combination can be pronounced 3 ways in American English. Here are some examples.
ou can be pronounced like /oʊ/
shoulder
soul
though
doughnut
although
ou can be pronounced like [...]
One problem that many or most non-native English speakers face in speaking American English is how to make the two sounds of ‘th’.
Here is a link to a lesson on these two very common sounds. At the end of the lesson is an audio practice activity for you to use.
American English Audio Lesson-The TH Sounds
If [...]
Those of you who read my blog frequently know that using syllable stress correctly is one of the very best ways to improve your comprehensibility when you speak English. That said, here are a few syllable stress patterns for compound words that you may find useful.
Compound nouns are stressed on the first word in the [...]
Many non-native English speakers tend to drop word final consonants such as the S sounds in words such as: boys, washes and stops.
When you do this it contributes to your accent and it creates grammatical errors that will confuse your listeners.
Keep in mind that word final S has 3 sounds in spoken English. In the [...]
Several of my students tell me that they have trouble understanding the spoken English of native speakers. This is not at all unusual.
One reason that native English speakers are difficult to understand is because they often use reduced speech. When native speakers use reduced speech the words seem to run together and this can make [...]
Lots of people write to ask me about English pronunciation software. One that has recently come to my attention is called EyeSpeak English.
This program teaches English pronunciation through carefully designed content. Words build to sentences using common everyday themes that contain the language you need to know to speak English effectively with friends and in [...]
Haitian Creole speakers and French speakers have some of the same problems with spoken English.
One of these is the tendency to delete the /h/ sound at the beginning of words. Word initial /h/ is almost always pronounced in American English. That means that the /h/ must be articulated clearly in words such as: hat, here, [...]
If you are an advanced student of American English pronunciation you have probably learned about linking (or liaisons). Linking refers to the connections between words. Ann Cook, author of American Accent Training, says that these connections “allow us to speak in sound groups” instead of word by word.
Spoken English has linking between words and also [...]
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 the question [...]
