The Center for Confident American English Communication

When you take a pronunciation or accent reduction class your instructor will teach you lots of new vocabulary to explain the pronunciation features that you must learn. Here is a mini pronunciation glossary with words that I taught the students in my accent reduction classes this month. 1. Reduced speech-The relaxed pronunciation of commonly used words and phrases

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Perhaps you have heard people say that intonation is the melody or the music of spoken American English. That’s because English speakers use different types of intonation or pitch patterns in phrases and sentences. These intonation patterns are extremely important because they convey meaning. If you are not aware of how Americans use these pitch

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The sounds of the letters S & Z are often confusing for students of American English pronunciation. Here are a few tips for pronouncing these sounds correctly. Tongue position The /s/ and /z/ sounds are made with the same tongue position. The tip of the tongue is behind your upper gum ridge. The tongue is

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In spoken American English many numbers sound very similar. In order to pronounce numbers clearly you must pay attention to syllable stress, the sound of the “t” and word endings.  Here are a few rules you can use to help you. 1. Tens numbers have major stress on the first syllable. Say the first syllable

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