Improv­ing your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion may seem to be a long process, but some­times it is much more like a vol­cano explod­ing. One day, noth­ing seems dif­fer­ent. And the next day, sud­denly, your whole world has changed.

On this day in AD 79, Mt. Vesu­vius exploded, leav­ing a last­ing impres­sion as one of the most pow­er­ful vol­ca­noes ever recorded. We often think of vol­ca­noes as being sud­den and unex­pected, but in real­ity, the pres­sure is build­ing under­ground for a long time before any­thing is ever vis­i­ble on the sur­face. There may be a few trick­les or warn­ing signs in the few days prior to the big explo­sion, but for the most part the red hot lava bursts onto the scene rather unexpectedly.

It reminds me of what often hap­pens when you are work­ing on reduc­ing your accent. Thank­fully, no one is harmed by burn­ing lava! But, often there is a great deal of change going on just beneath the sur­face of your brain when you don’t even real­ize it.

You see, rep­e­ti­tion retrains the brain to do things a dif­fer­ent way. So, you may be prac­tic­ing your sounds daily, not sure if it’s mak­ing any dif­fer­ence at all. Then, all of sud­den, one day you wake up and you just hear the sounds differently.When you speak, you are more con­fi­dent that the words are com­ing out cor­rectly, and even other peo­ple notice that your speech is clearer.

Just like that. Boom!

You’re on a whole new level with your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion. You become more tuned into the sub­tle dif­fer­ences in your speech and the speech of oth­ers because you can finally really hear the dif­fer­ences. You don’t have to wait for your speech coach to tell you if you pro­nounced the word right or wrong because you KNOW. Now, you own the progress you are mak­ing as you inter­nal­ize what you’ve learned in a whole new way.

And, just like the lava flow­ing down the moun­tain­side, your new speech pat­terns are unstop­pable. The more you speak, the more those new pat­terns become engrained in your brain. And the more eas­ily they come out every time you speak, the more con­fi­dent you become.

Have you expe­ri­enced your “speech vol­cano” yet? What are you wait­ing for? I’d love to show you howto have explo­sive growth in your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion. Let’s get started!

If you’re not sure what sounds you should be prac­tic­ing, visit www.losemyaccent.com to sign up for your free accent screen­ing. You can record your voice, send it to me, and I will tell you the top three sounds that will help you to improve your Amer­i­can pronunciation.