Sound more natural in American English

The people who I work with in my accent reduction coaching program often tell me~

Susan, I wanna sound more natural when I speak American English. How can I do that?

Sounding more natural is an excellent goal.

Here’s one technique that’ll help you achieve  that.

How to speak with a natural sound

One key strategy I teach my clients who want to sound natural is how to reduce the sounds of less important words.

In spoken English, words such as: and, or, of, to, as & for are almost always reduced.

Most of the time the vowels in these words have a schwa vowel sound /ǝ/.

Sometimes these words seem to have no vowel sound at all.

Examples

Here are 10 examples of reduced speech.

1. Saturday ‘n Sunday
2. now ‘n then
3. sooner ‘r later
4. Tuesday ‘r Wednesday
5. most ǝ thǝ time
6. out ǝ order
7. day dǝ day
8. time dǝ go
9. good ǝz new
10. easy ǝz pie

Listen to the Phrases Here

Listen to how I reduce the sounds of the words: and, or, of, to & and.

Listen to how I stress the bolded words.

 

Reduced speech makes you sound more natural

If you wanna sound more natural, especially in informal conversations, you’ve gotta used reduced sounds!

When you reduce little words and stress the important words, your speech will sound more familiar to Americans.

You’ll be able to speak with a melody that Americans can easily relate to.♫

I can show you how

If you’re a non native speaker of American English who wants to improve your American accent, take a free trial lesson by following the link below.

My training programs will teach you how speak American English in a way that sounds natural.

About the author

Susan Ryan is an American English communication and accent reduction coach.