The Center for Confident American English Communication

I meet many non-native English speakers who have excellent grammar. However, they do not articulate word final consonant sounds strongly enough and this contributes to their accent. One word final sound that many people fail to articulate is the past tense ed. Failing to pronounce the ed will definitely contribute to your accent! Most of

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If you are an advanced student of American English pronunciation you have probably learned about linking (or liaisons). Linking refers to the connections between words. Ann Cook, author of American Accent Training, says that these connections “allow us to speak in sound groups” instead of word by word. Spoken English has linking between words and

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The letter X has two pronunciations in American English. Here is the first one. When X is followed by a stressed vowel it is pronounced like /gz/. Here are a few examples: 1. exAct→egzact 2. exActly→egzactly 3. exAmple→egzample 4. exAm→egzam 5. exAmine→egzamine When an X is followed by a consonant sound it is pronounced like

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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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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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Pronouncing voiced consonants in American English is a problem for many Vietnamese speakers (and speakers of other Asian languages). In American English we have many voiced consonant sounds. These sounds include: /b/,/d/, /g/, /ð/,/z/, /v/, /ʒ/ & /dʒ/. Here are a few examples of what happens: When you say the word save it sounds like safe. When

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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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