What Your Voice Says About You

I found this interesting article on Career Builder. It confirms what I say to my students over and over again. Don't speak so fast. Not only will your accent be stronger, but you might be perceived as insecure or not careful about details. There's nothing wrong with speaking slowly unless your voice is monotonous. This is easy to fix when you learn the rules of word stress.

If you already speak quickly in your native language, your accent in English will be so much more difficult to understand if you don't slow down. You will be likely to swallow a lot of consonants.

Sometimes I record my students while they are speaking in class. Then when I play it back to them, even they don't understand what they said. Try recording your voice and then analyze how you sound. You might be shocked by what you hear.

This article also discusses other types of voices and speaking styles and how they are percieved, particularly during job interviews.

http://jobs.aol.com/article/_a/what-your-voice-says-about-you/20080825161009990001?ncid=AOLCOMMjobsDYNLprim0001&icid=200100397x1215954317x1201107305

There's a good book on this topic called: "Change Your Voice, Change Your Life" by Milton Cooper.

response to comment about embarassing mistakes

reader wrote: "Thanks very much for putting up this wonderful blog. I have been in the US for more than 7 years. My accent now is somewhat of a hybrid between American and Indian. Still at times I end up pronouncing some words (out of no where) in my native accent which in some cases is embarassing. Can you give some tips on how to avoid such awful untimely mistakes? Also, I always have this confusion about pronouncing words like "coke" and "cock" (I am sure you can see how this could be embarassing at times!). Mistakes like this kills my morale and confidence in speaking American English (creates like a mental block). I would greatly appreciate any tips on this."

First off, there's no guarantee that your American accent will always sound great. When you are tired and stressed, your foreign accent is likely to be stronger. Don't let this discourage you. You will keep improving if you are using English regulary around native speakers and if you practice "focused listening" when you are around Americans who use langauge well. If you do this, these errors that you mention will occur less and less frequently.

By the way, I do know about the "coke" and "cock" error. Here's what happened to one of my students: When she was in a restaurant ordering, she wanted to say to the waiter, "I want a large coke." But because she pronounced the "o" sound of the word "coke" incorrectly, you can imagine what the waiter thought he heard. She said he blushed.

The "o" of the word "coke" is actually an "ou" sound. Make sure that you pronounce both the "o" and the "u." The "o" of the word "cock" is an "a" sound as in "father" or "watch."

I have developped tons of practice exercises for these sounds in my new accent reduction book which will be available in book stores in a few months. You can already pre-order it on Amazon.com. It's called "Mastering the American Accent" by me, Lisa Mojsin. The publisher is Barrons. It comes with 4 audio CD's. It's only $19.99 on Amazon. I cannot believe how low they are pricing it.

I include a section in the book called "Warning, Dangerous Mistakes" that discusses the "coke/cock" issue and some other stuff that can be really embarrassing.

Happy New Year Everyone!!! I leave you with this quote:

"Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things losers don't like to do." Albert Grey

Best,

Lisa

When your mouth hurts from speaking English

I was inspired to write this because of what happened with one of my accent reduction students today. First I want to tell you about my personal experience with speaking French.

When I go to France, the first few days that I am there it’s a struggle to get the words out smoothly and my mouth literally hurts. The mouth muscles and lip movements used in speaking French are so different, and sometimes it’s just exhausting. I want to give up and just go back to speaking English. But if I keep trying to imitate the sounds that exist only in French but not in English, after about four or five days it’s so much easier. At that point, I feel confident about speaking it again and it becomes really fun. (It may sound weird to some people, but for me speaking foreign languages well is fun and very fulfilling.)

My Chinese student, a successful young man with an MBA, came in for a lesson today. I love his discipline and hard work. He generally practices every day when he first gets up. But this time he told me that he hadn’t practiced working on this accent for the past few days. In the beginning of the class, he said that his mouth wasn’t moving well and that he was struggling with creating the difficult sounds. By the end of the class it was a different story. He was warmed up and the sounds came out more easily and fluently.

Don't give up when your mouth feels "stuck." Work through it.

Some of you don’t have many opportunities to use English a lot because you have a technical job where you don’t have to speak a lot. And then you go home to your family and you speak your native language. That doesn't help! This is what you need to do: Talk to yourself out loud in English when you are alone. Hear yourself saying your thoughts. If you don’t like how something came out, you can fix it by repeating. No one is there to hear you! I did this when I was studying French in LA and I had no one to speak it with.

I had one student who made amazing progress by doing this every morning. He is an actor and people are shocked about how American he sounds.

Okay, that's my motivational story for you. It's really cold in LA today. It feels like December in Paris, but without my mouth hurting. :)
Good luck!!!

Don't stop practicing! Here's how:

1. Pick a topic that you can speak about for three to four minutes. Record yourself giving this speech. Listen to the recording and write down all of the errors that you have heard in your speech. Then, re-record the same speech, and try to correct the mistakes that you made before. Repeat this same speech 3 or 4 times, trying to sound better each time.

2. Watch an American film over and over again, rewinding certain scenes and repeating them out loud.

Be creative. There are so many ways to practice. The main ingredient to success is motivation. If you want to succeed, then you can succeed and you will succeed. If you are motivated to learn, you will automatically start listening to native speakers and trying to sound like them.

No Bad Words Allowed!!

Yesterday my student said to me that he had a client in “Newport Bitch.” I told him not to use bad language in my office!!! Of course, he meant “Newport Beach.” He told me that his American client laughed a little when he said that word in front of him.

Have you made the same mistake? Have you confused the words “beach” and “bitch” and “sheet” and “shit?” That can be embarrassing!

OK, here’s how to fix the error:

First, don’t just assume that the first vowel is longer and the second one is shorter. It sometimes sounds that way, but technically that’s not the main difference. The phonetic symbol for the vowel of “beach” is /i/. This sound is considered a tense vowel. For “bitch it’s /I/ and it’s considered a lax or neutral vowel. For the tense vowel, your tongue is tense and raised up. It helps to also tense your lips and smile a bit when you say it. For the relaxed vowel, the tongue is completely relaxed and the lips are completely relaxed.

The spelling of the word will tell you if the vowel is tense or lax. Generally words spelled with “ee” and “ea” as in “feel” and “weak” have the tense vowel. In contrast, words spelled with “i” have the lax vowel. Compare these sounds and make sure that you don’t pronounce these words the same:

/i/ /I/
feel – fill
steal – still
green – grin
meat – mit
seen – sin

Who are your role models for good speech?

In an effort to sound more American, some of my students try to imitate the speech of their native speaking friends, colleagues or spouses. While this is generally a good idea, you need to be aware of the fact that some native speakers may not be such great role models for you. Be careful of those who mumble (have lazy lips and don’t fully enunciate each sound). Generally talk radio show hosts and news broadcasters are good role models to imitate. Action movie heroes are usually not!


Also, pay attention to the differences between casual and formal speech. The speaking style that your friends use in casual situations may not be appropriate in a professional environment.


For example, I had a student who used the word “hey” instead of “hi,” even on her voicemail at work. “Hey, you have reached Jane” just doesn’t sound appropriate.” It’s OK to use “hey” as a greeting for your friends but not for business communication.

analyze your speaking style

Here’s something that will help some of you quickly improve your accents.

Do a little self-diagnosis of your individual speaking style. Here are three questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you tend to speak quickly in you native language?

If yes, you probably speak fast when you are speaking English as well. This can cause your accent to sound stronger, particularly if you are not following the rules of American English word stress and intonation (The melody of the language.) Think about it; if you are speaking fast and not stressing the right words, people will have a very hard time understanding you.

You shouldn't sound mechanical by pronouncing every word seperately like a robot. Learn the rules of linking words together when speaking English. Linking and speaking fast are two completely different things.

2. Do you have a quiet, reserved or shy personality?

Are you more introverted than outgoing? This can also be cultural, by the way. If yes, people may have a harder time understand you. Outgoing people are more animated not only with their body language but also with the way they move their mouth and use their vocal cords. The loud voice often forces the jaw and lips to move more, creating a sound that is clearer. Imitate someone who is outgoing and has a “big” personality. Remember, Americans are generally not shy people. They are more expressive than people from a lot of other cultures. Asians and northern Europeans in particular are less outgoing in general. I’m sure they think we Americans are too loud. In fact, I don't think, I know they do. Imitate us and your accent will sound better!! :)

3. Do you tend to mumble in your native language?

Some of my students admit to me that when they speak their native language they are often asked to repeat what they said. They have what is called “lazy lips.” They don’t enunciate (pronounce fully) all of the consonant and vowel sounds in any language. This bad habit can be broken.

Try this: Imagine that you are speaking to a deaf person who has to read your lips. You will naturally move your mouth more to make it easier for the deaf person to catch every word you’re saying. Or imagine you are a theater actor or a poet reading his poetry out loud - every word is beautiful to listen to, every word matters. Fall in love with the beauty of words, pronounce them clearly and with energy. Don’t just mumble them as if they are not important. Your words are important so say them well; don't take short cuts. Just like a dancer moves beautifully and a singer sings beautifully, a speaker can speak beautifully!