Welcome back! Have you checked out my Accent Reduction classes yet?
Do you speak American English with a foreign accent? Many highly educated people read and write English perfectly. However, when they speak they have an accent that causes communication problems.
There are a number of factors that contribute to accented speech and this week I am going to describe five factors that may be causing you to have an accent when you speak American English.
Today I will talk about syllable stress and intonation.
People typically use the stress and intonation patterns from their native language when they speak American English. Since your native language uses stress and intonation differently than we do in English this will contribute to your accent. This will make your speech may sound it too choppy, too fast too flat. Learning how to speak using American English syllable stress and intonation patterns will really help you to reduce your accent sound more American.
Professor Marianne Celce Murcia, co author of Teaching Pronunciation, found that students studying American English need a balance of both sound lessons and stress and intonation lessons in order to increase their comprehensibility.
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