Monthly Archives: August 2011

Back to School and Pronunciation Rules

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It’s back to school time and that means new school sup­plies, new teach­ers, and often new school rules. It can be frus­trat­ing for us and our kids when dif­fer­ent teach­ers have dif­fer­ent rules. Some are easy to remem­ber and some can be more of a chal­lenge, but fol­low­ing the rules is a key to a pleas­ant school experience.

Lan­guages have their own set of rules, too, and fail­ing to fol­low those rules can make com­mu­ni­ca­tion frus­trat­ing and some­times unsuc­cess­ful. I find that my clients some­times know more gram­mar rules of Eng­lish than I do, but they have not been taught the Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion rules that they need.

You can’t fol­low a rule that you don’t know about, right? So, today I decided to share with you three of the most com­mon Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion rules that are hard for non-native speak­ers. I’ll show you the most com­mon mis­take or “rule-breaker” and then explain how to change it.

1. Say­ing an S sound instead of a Z sound

Many non-native speak­ers use an s sound for a z sound. S and Z use the exact same tongue and mouth shape; the dif­fer­ence is in the voic­ing. The S sound is pro­duced with­out the voice, but the Z sound requires the voice. To feel the dif­fer­ence, put your hand on your throat and try say­ing S-s-s-s. You should not feel any­thing. Now try say­ing Z-z-z-z. You should feel a vibra­tion in your throat. Prac­tice say­ing words like Sue and zoo, and buzz and bus.

2. Using Long E and Short I interchangably

These two vow­els are often sub­sti­tuted one for the other, but doing so can change the mean­ing of the word. The long E is made by pulling the lips back into a smile. This is the vowel in the sen­tence: Meet me on Green Street. The short I, on the other hand, is made by keep­ing your tongue flat on the bot­tom of your mouth. Open it just a lit­tle and say ” ih”, as in Give the tip to him on the ship.

3. Say­ing a W instead of a V sound

The W sound is made by round­ing the lips and say­ing “ooh-uh”. This is the sound that begins words like water, where, and watch but this is not the sound we want to make when say­ing words like vaca­tion or vio­lin. The V sound is made by lightly plac­ing the top teeth on the lower lip, turn­ing on the voice and blow­ing. Prac­tice each sound sep­a­rately, then try say­ing: Victor’s watch, win­ter vaca­tion, and wash the veg­eta­bles.

Were those tips help­ful? I’ll be giv­ing away Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion tips like that and many more on my free webi­nar com­ing up in two weeks. Have you reserved your spot yet? Seats are going quickly, so reserve your space now.

  • 9/8/2011 1:05 PM Pedro Alvarez wrote:
    1. Even if you train your stu­dents to pro­duce both /s/ and /z/, they will have prob­lems wrt when to pro­duce /s/ and /z/.There are some heuris­tics:
    1. plu­rals, pos­ses­sives and cor­re­spond­ing assim­i­la­tion. Excep­tions in this cat­e­gory, if any.
    2. There is a heuris­tic that many ESL speak­ers have learned: /s/ in noun, but /z/ in verb (cf. use, advice, etc). How­ever, this heuris­tic fails in words: crease, increase, decrease, lease, release, cease, decease (cf. dis­ease), fleece, etc.

Are You Willing to Take the Risk?

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Years of hard work … peo­ple call­ing you crazy … putting your life at risk … try­ing to do some­thing oth­ers said can’t be done … is it worth it? Appar­ently, Orville and Wilbur Wright thought so.

Today, August 19, we cel­e­brate National Avi­a­tion Day in honor of the Wright broth­ers who got their first air­plane to take flight in 1903. These broth­ers had a dream and they were deter­mined to make it hap­pen. They knew that if they stud­ied hard enough, they could fig­ure it out. Do you know what they studied?

Birds.

Birds fly effort­lessly and with­out thought, mas­ters of their craft. If you want to learn how to do some­thing well, the best thing to do is to copy a mas­ter. So, the Wright broth­ers stud­ied birds, the struc­ture of their wings, and the way they flew, and applied these prin­ci­ples to their air­plane wings.

If you want to do some­thing well, find a mas­ter to learn from. If you want to learn to fly, study the birds. If you want to learn to ski, learn from pro­fes­sional skiers. And if you want to learn to speak Eng­lish more clearly, learn it from a native speaker who knows how it sounds and how it works.

Sure, there is a risk involved in work­ing on your pro­nun­ci­a­tion. You might make a mis­take while learn­ing a new sound; in fact, you prob­a­bly will. Most peo­ple do. But is that a rea­son not to try?

And yes, a col­league might ask you to repeat your­self or laugh at you when the new word that sounded so good in class didn’t come out right at all in conversation.

But, chances are, if you work hard, you will see improve­ment in your speech. You will speak Eng­lish more clearly and oth­ers will under­stand you bet­ter. Your con­fi­dence will improve and you will begin to believe that you can accom­plish more than you ever thought possible.

I want to part­ner with you as you take that risk and feel the thrill of accom­plish­ment in your pro­nun­ci­a­tion skills.

And it all starts with a sim­ple step. Click on the link below to reserve your space in my free webi­nar com­ing up on Sep­tem­ber 12.

http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=E958DE85854B

Yes, that’s right. A FREE webi­nar! I’m tak­ing away the risk for you. It’s no cost and no oblig­a­tion. All you have to do is show up and give it a try.

You will learn tips and tech­niques to improve your pro­nun­ci­a­tion and ideas for increas­ing your vocab­u­lary. You will find out about com­mon gram­mar pit­falls and why it is so impor­tant that you work on your accent now.

Imag­ine being able to say what­ever you want, any time you want because you know you will be under­stood. Doesn’t that sound great?

It just takes a small risk — it’s what I call “sign up and show up.” That’s it. Reserve your space here and show up ready to learn.

http://www.anymeeting.com/PIID=E958DE85854B

If you’re will­ing to take that risk, the rewards will be worth it; I promise! So don’t wait to reserve your place; space is lim­ited and I don’t want you to miss out !

If you’re excited about this oppor­tu­nity to improve your pro­nun­ci­a­tion, please share it with your friends. Pass around the link on Face­book and Twit­ter, and let’s see who is ready to take the risk to speak clearer Eng­lish with confidence!

Did you miss me?

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Noth­ing says sum­mer like a big, juicy slice of cold water­melon! I think Mark Twain summed it up well when he said, “When one has tasted water­melon, he knows what the angels eat.” It is a favorite Amer­i­can sum­mer treat, found at almost any bar­be­cue or cook­out all sum­mer long.

One of the rea­sons that a water­melon is such a refresh­ing treat on a hot day is because it is 90% water. And it tastes so much bet­ter than a plain glass of water!

You haven’t heard from me much lately because I’ve been enjoy­ing some time off with my fam­ily this sum­mer. And yes, we’ve been eat­ing lots of water­melon fresh from the farmer’s market.

The begin­ning of August marks a time of tran­si­tion for our fam­ily, as we enjoy the last days of sum­mer and pre­pare our­selves for the new school year to begin. Believe it or not, my kids go back to school next week and that means that I’ll be back with more reg­u­lar post­ings and a great new sur­prise to start the fall sea­son off with a bang.

Some of you joined me over the sum­mer for some inten­sive pro­nun­ci­a­tion study while every­thing else in life had slowed down for a cou­ple of months. Many of you, though, have had some well-earned down time over the sum­mer and now you are ready to work on your accent. Whether you’re prepar­ing to go back to school, look­ing for a job, or just want to com­mu­ni­cate more eas­ily with your friends, this is a great time to focus on your Eng­lish skills. You will espe­cially like what I have to share next week – a fun and pain­less way to ease back into prac­tic­ing your Amer­i­can pronunciation!

What have you done this sum­mer to improve your pro­nun­ci­a­tion skills? In the com­ment box below, share the one thing that has helped you the most. I can’t wait to see what you’ve learned!

If you haven’t made the progress you had hoped for and you’re look­ing for some guid­ance, be sure to request your free pro­nun­ci­a­tion guide in the box on the right side of the page.