The Center for Confident American English Communication

When they are speaking American English, Korean speakers often have problems pronouncing the /w/ sound in words such as: question quiet quality quickly quarterly inquire I’ve also heard this mistake with some of the Chinese (Cantonese) speakers who I work with. Remember that the letter Q in English has a /k+w/ sound. You must really

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Since the Korean language does not use syllable stress or word stress within sentences, most Korean speakers have a tendency to speak English with a flat or monotone sound. This makes it difficult for native English speakers to understand what they are saying. Native English speakers expect to hear prominent syllables and words when they

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American English has about 15 different vowel sounds. Some of these vowel sounds are particularly difficult for Koreans to pronounce. These include the /iy/ sound and the /ae/ sound. Koreans often pronounce /I/ vowel sound as in the words sit, still, & live more like the /iy/ vowel sounds in the words seat, steal &

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Linking happens in every English sentence. We connect two words together when the first word ends in a vowel sound and the next word begins with the same vowel sound. that table sounds like thattable next time sounds like nexttime We also connect words when the first word ends with a consonant sound and the

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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

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In spoken American English both the /r/ & /l/ sounds are called “liquids”. That’s because the air stream moves around the tongue in an unobstructed manner. Both the /r/ & /l/ sounds are voiced so you should feel a vibration in your throat when you say them. When you make the light /l/ sound, the

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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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Many non-native English speakers, including Koreans, often mispronounce the words woman and women. Both words are stressed on the first syllable as indicated in ‘ bold. However, the vowel sounds do not sound how you think they should! The word woman is pronounced ‘wʊ-mən. The word women is pronounced ‘wɪ-mɪn. Here is a short video from

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In spoken American English the letter combination TH makes two different sounds. One of these sounds is voiced and the other is voiceless. The IPA symbol for the voiced th sound looks like this /ð/. The IPA symbol for the voiceless th sound looks like this /θ/. While both of these sounds cause problems for

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Here are two American English consonant sounds that are problematic for Korean speakers. The first is the /f/ sound. This sound does not occur in Korean. Korean speakers often pronounce the /f/ sound as a /p/ sound . That means that the word stuff sounds like stop, the word coffee sounds like copy and the

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