Do you think that spoken English should be learned word by word? Or do you think that it’s better to learn speaking using chunks or phrases? I like to teach individual words according to their syllable stress patterns and primary vowel sounds. That helps my students and clients be better understood right away. However, I also like to teach chunks
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Probably the most common question that I get from my students and clients concerns how to learn to use American English intonation. Intonation is not easy to learn from a book. You really need to instruction on how to hear it and apply it. There are not always clear cut rules because intonation is related
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Do you ever feel like people misinterpret your meaning when you speak with them in American English? Have people commented that your speech sounds blunt, flat or even unfriendly? This has happened to several of my accent reduction coaching clients. When this happens I teach them how to use American English intonation patterns. Intonation is
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North American English speakers speak in phrases. In pronunciation and accent reduction classes you will hear these phrases referred to as thought groups or intonation groups. Thought groups are sequences of words that have one prominent word. This is called a content word or a focus word. Thought groups are set off by short pauses
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My apologies to my regular readers because I haven’t posted any accent reduction tips in over a week! Sorry, I’ve been so busy teaching…and after working with many people on their accent in the past couple of weeks I want to emphasize something…. If you want to speak English more clearly one thing you absolutely
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In spoken American English we use different types of intonation and pitch to express meaning and emotion. Since you can’t learn about intonation without listening to native speakers, you MUST use audio courses or CDs to practice this skill. One of the best ways to learning and practice the rhythms and intonations of spoken American
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Even if you pronounce all of your American English vowel and consonant sounds clearly, you will have a difficult time communicating with native English speakers effectively if you don’t use the correct intonation patterns. Your speech patterns may sound rather neutral (or even sarcastic) to American listeners. This can contribute to misunderstandings! Most Chinese speakers,
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In my accent reduction coaching program, I work with many Spanish speaking clients. These include international professionals from Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico. While each person has a slightly different accent, they all have problems with these five features of spoken English: The /I/ sound as in fill & difficult The /ae/ sound as
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Lots of people send me email messages asking me to explain some of the intonation patterns that we use in American English. In fact this is one of the most important things that I teach my clients in my accent reduction coaching course. Let me describe the most common type of intonation. The most common
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Lots of people stop by my blog each day to find information about American English intonation patterns. Here in the U.S. we use several types of intonation patterns when we speak. These include; rising-falling intonation, rising intonation, continuation rise, series intonation and tag question intonation. In order to use intonation patterns correctly, you need to:
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