Expert English Pronunciation, Accent Reduction & Fluency
Q. Why is it difficult for native speakers to understand me when I talk with them in English? A. You are using the sound system of your first language when you speak English, which has it’s own sound system. Did you know Read More ...
If Arabic is your native language, you may be using the Arabic “sound system” when you speak English. There are some important differences between Arabic and English. There are many more vowels in English than Arabic, and the ones that aren’t Read More ...
If Japanese is your first language, you may be using a Japanese “sound system” when you speak English. Japanese has fewer vowels with very regular lengths, but English vowels can be stretched or shortened anytime, depending on the need. English Read More ...
If an Indo-Aryan language like Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Nepali, Sinhala, or Divehi, is your native language… you may be using its “sound system” when you speak English. The more you understand about the English sound system, the better you will sound Read More ...
If French is your native language, you may be using the French “sound system” when you speak English. The “mode” or starting position in French is different from English. English front vowels are longer and more tense than French vowels. Schwa exists Read More ...
If Korean is your first language, you may be using the Korean “sound system” for English. But the Korean sound system does not use stress in words and sentences in the way English does. English consonants, especially final position, are Read More ...
If your first language is Russian, or a dialect of Russian, you may be using the Slavonic “sound system” when you speak English. You may not have learned much about this if you studied English as a foreign language. Some Read More ...
If Chinese is your native language, you may be using the Chinese “sound system” when you speak English. In Chinese, tone is word-specific, but in English tone is statement-based and must be adjusted for what’s new, what’s different, and what’s Read More ...
If Spanish is your native language, you may be using the Spanish “sound system” when you speak English. You may not be stretching and shrinking your English vowels to shape each word. You may be using a Spanish melody for your Read More ...
If you are difficult to understand when you speak English, you are probably using your first language sound system as you say English words. English is stress-based, and you must learn to “package” words and “package” phrases, using strategies that Read More ...
Written for ESL and EFL teachers, tutors, and accent reduction coaches, as well as advanced level English students who can read and understand the English on this website. Inside, you’ll discover how our languages differ and learn great strategies and Read More ...
Take Private Lessons. American Pronunciation Coach provides private, intensive, customized training to help you speak English more fluently and comprehensibly, and reduce your accent. We will work together to help you achieve your goals. I will diagnose your speaking habits in English and teach you Read More ...
Just as artists use charcoal or paints or clay to create an experience, teachers use research, best teaching practice and personal insights to craft the best learning experience for their students. I consider what I do to be an art Read More ...
I have a theory about this. I’ve been teaching English pronunciation a long time, so questions like this come up, over and over. Here’s my thinking. We know that listening to speech is nothing like reading a written text. They Read More …
If your first language makes a tongue flick or tap on the roof of your mouth for the R sound, then you are going to be working on the sound of R in English. If you already follow my lessons, Read More …
Teaching English pronunciation and intonation is a challenging job. And learning it is even harder. Part of the problem is that we are born with our first language intonation already programmed; we know that babies, by 6 months in utero, Read More …
For 10 years, Fernald and her colleagues and students have traveled worldwide to record mothers interacting with their babies, bringing the tapes back to Stanford for detailed acoustical and linguistic analysis. She has found that mothers of all nations Read More …
Ann Fernald: “Sound is kind of like touch at a distance.” We at Radiolab did our own study of infant-directed speech, recording more than a dozen different parents. The melodies of these recordings illustrate Fernald’s findings that there are a Read More …
In her 2011 TED talk, “The Linguistic Genius of Babies,” Doctor Kuhl discusses how babies under 8 months of age from different cultures can detect sounds in any language from around the world, but adults cannot do this. 6 So Read More …
Recent studies suggest that content delivered in heavily accented speech may be harder for listeners to remember. The same problem also occurs for listeners with hearing difficulties. It may be neurological, not cultural-bias or lack of exposure. Van Engen and her Read More …
Teach Pronunciation? Dump the IPA! Get Judy Tompson’s truly ingenious, highly practical, totally student friendly EPA for teaching the sounds of English, free on her website.Click to Download Source: EPA Vowel Color Chart | Thompson Language Center [bctt tweet=”Dump the IPA! Make Read More …
One of the reasons it sounds different when you hear someone speaking a different language is because the actual sounds they use are different; they have a sound code that’s specific to that language Source: How bilinguals switch between languages Read More …
When presented with English words containing either of these sounds, brain imaging studies show that only a single region of a Japanese speaker’s brain is activated, whereas in English speakers, two different areas of activation show up, one for each Read More …
[bctt tweet=”For Japanese, hearing, producing differences between English sounds require rewiring of brain circuitry.”] Read more here. What happens in the brain when you learn a language? | Education | The Guardian
Source: English Laboratory | Thinking and Dreaming in English [bctt tweet=”While you are drifting off to sleep, tell yourself ‘tonight I will dream in English.’ When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you should do is write Read More …
When we speak in front of a group, we’re not up there just to get through it…we are speaking to be heard and maybe even to transform. In 1998, I began learning everything I could about public speaking and bought Read More …
During a “mastermind weekend” at colleague Jennifer England’s home in L’Albi Spain last fall, someone asked if I remembered a moment that changed how I teach. One of my “aha” moments was in the dentist’s office; I finally understood why Read More …
Dr. Kjellin is a leader in the study of auditory processing and second language learning. If you teach English pronunciation (or any language’s sound), I recommend his work and research. Here are a few quotes from one of his white papers. “Choral Read More …
Even if you never reach fluency and never sound like a native speaker, keep studying…the benefit to your brain is measurable and remarkable! In this NYT post, William Alexander shares his own experiences failing at French, and some research that Read More …
John Graham speaks about conflicts between English, Japanese, and Brazilian communication styles [bctt tweet=”John Graham on Youtube re conflicts between English, Japanese, + Brazilians communication styles.”]
If my pronunciation students have iphones or ipads, I recommend they try out Otterwave, available in the Itunes Store (it’s not free). Although the app has a British flag on it, it uses American pronunciation models. Otterwave provides a feedback loop Read More …
For Arabic speakers, the pronunciation of these 3 words can be confounding. It is a place where the Arabic vowel system and the English vowel system do not match up. I use a multi-step approach to help sort out their sounds. Read More …
Learn the pronunciation of the vowel in the stressed syllable, as well as how the ‘a’ in pronounced. I recommend using m-w.com to hear American pronunciation. The following words have at least one ‘a’ that sounds like the vowel in the Read More …
When we learn to speak another language, we must acquire some new sounds and strategies. We may also have to reset how and when we employ stress and timing. These slides will accompany a webinar conversation between Peggy Tharpe, M.A. Read More …
Harvard’s Tsedal Neeley discusses our future lingua franca, and advises business leaders on ways to prepare for it. [bctt tweet=”Harvard’s Tsedal Neeley discusses our future lingua franca, and advises business leaders on ways to prepare.” via=”no”]
For a few years now, I have been doing empirical research in my one-to-one courses teaching English pronunciation. I discovered that certain specific gestures, mostly hand and arm, actually change and improve the pronunciation of my clients, and quicken their Read More …
With the anytune app you can control the speed of a spoken sample without changing the pitch (how high or low the voice goes). Or you can change the pitch up to an octave, and not change the tempo. Or Read More …
English Central is a great site for practicing your sound in English and getting valuable feedback about your accuracy. And they have soooo much stuff! Today I found this slide show on Slideshare; it was linked to eflclassroom.com I often Read More …
(At least…its one of your questions if your first language is Arabic, Burmese, Cebuano, Greek, Indonesian, Japanese, Javanese, Korean, Marshallese, Navajo, Persian/Farsi, Spanish, or Tagalog Since B and V are the same in Spanish, but different in English, raising awareness Read More …
After years (and years) of teaching ESL and EFL, I have distilled my knowledge, skills, and experiences into guiding “principles” in a few areas of teaching, and happily, no longer have to search for materials or buy something a publisher Read More …
One of the features I like about using SoundCloud for pronunciation feedback is the ability to mark a spot on a student’s recording, and write a note about the sound, and attach the note to that place on the recording.
Every English word has its own rhythm and stress pattern. Use these worksheets to record words that have the most difficult stress patterns for you! Stretch a rubber band to help you feel how to lengthen and strengthen the stressed Read More …
During the last two centuries, many phonetic systems were developed by linguists who wanted to document and compare all the language sounds they encountered in their studies of world languages. They aimed for a comprehensive set that would represent every Read More …
If we use our first language sounds, rhythms and tones when we speak the words of another language, this causes “accent”. We often do this without realizing it because we learned those sounds and tones while still in our mothers’ Read More …
English pronunciation is tricky. It has changed over time, and it will change in the future. What’s happening in American English’s pronunciation of the word Comfortable? You can call it lazy, or you can call it efficient, but American English tends Read More …
People usually pronounce proper names differently than the origin-language pronunciation for a couple of reasons they don’t know the origin language, so they pronounce it based on the pronunciation rules from their own language, or the person with the name Read More …
Read Peggy Tharpe's answer to Why do I get so confused pronouncing “kid” and “key”in English? on Quora
Read Peggy Tharpe's answer to How can I pronounce “th” in the right way every time, because each time I try to say it, it seems impossible or sounds like S? on Quora
English pronunciation doesn’t always match English spelling. Many short words spelled with the letter O actually make a different sound, AH or /ä/. Practice these words to sound more natural in English! To understand how to form the /ä/ sound Read More …