The Center for Confident American English Communication

Students who are really motivated to improve the way they speak English should invest in some training. One way to do this is to buy an accent reduction book. There are several accent reduction books with CD’s that are very affordable. Here are some of the most popular choices: 1. For people who have never

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Linguistic research indicates that the most common sound in spoken English is the schwa vowel sound. This is because native English speakers pronounce the vowels in most reduced syllables with the schwa sound. The phonetic symbol for schwa is /ə/. Here is an example. When I say my name, Susan, the first syllable is stressed so

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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 schwa /ə/ cousin

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