The Center for Confident American English Communication

Most of the Chinese & Vietnamese speakers who I work with in my accent reduction coaching program  have excellent reading and writing skills. Their grammar is usually quite professional. ☆ However…. when it comes to GRAMMAR, there is one big issue. ✔ They do not articulate word final consonant sounds strongly enough. What I mean

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My accent reduction coaching clients are usually surprised to learn that the letter X has two different sounds in American English. ☝ Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know this. Most native speakers don’t know this either!! OK then….here are the rules for pronouncing the X. Rule 1 ✓ When the letter X is followed

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In spoken American English there are many pairs of consonant sounds that are articulated using the same tongue and mouth shape. The difference between these pairs of sounds is that one sound is voiced and the other is voiceless. Voiced sounds cause the vocal chords to vibrate. Voiceless sounds are softer and do not cause

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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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When I taught accent reduction classes to the Vietnamese community in Northern Virginia, learning to voice word final consonants was a technique that helped my students there speak English more clearly! Voicing final consonants is a critical skill for Vietnamese speakers who are trying to improve their spoken English. What are voiced consonant sounds? In

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Vietnamese living in Ho Chi Minh City who want to improve their English pronunciation now have a special place to practice. The Master’s Cup coffee house welcomes anyone who wants to make friends and speak English. The coffee house doesn’t offer accent reduction classes but there are always two native English speaking volunteers who are available to talk

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