American Accent Training for Mandarin Speakers 

Many of the Mandarin speakers who come to me for American accent coaching tell me this~

Susan, I don’t feel like I come across as friendly and approachable in my workplace. Is it something to do with my accent?

And I often reply, Yes, it is.

Unfriendly speaking style

When Mandarin speakers speak American English, they often come across as unfriendly.

This happens for a few reasons:

• Over articulation of unstressed words and syllables
• Over articulation of the American T sounds
• Lack of American style intonation

The result is speech that sounds choppy and abrupt to American listeners.

Creating a friendly speaking style

When I coach Mandarin speakers on their American accent skills we work on stressed and unstressed vowel sounds. We work on the sounds of the American T. We work on creating an intonation style that comes across as smooth and friendly.

An online course for Mandarin speakers

This month I’ve organized many of these lessons into an online course called American Accent for Mandarin Speakers 101. Here are some of the skills I teach you in the course:

• How to pronounce words clearly using the correct syllable stress.
• How to use the reduced schwa vowel sound.
• How and when to use the American T sounds.
• How to pronounce word final S sounds.
• How to link and blend words together for smooth speech.

You can see the course at this link, American Accent for Mandarin Speakers 101.

OR, continue to read the tips and techniques for clear American speech here on my Confident Voice blog.

About the author

Susan Ryan is an American accent and communication coach. You can contact her at susan@confidentvoice.com.