The Rhythm and Melody of English

Here is a short exercise to help you with word stress and rhythm. 

First, here are some general rules:

• Stress key words (content words), which are generally nouns and verbs.
• In longer sentences, stress the last key word the most. 
• Reduce prepositions, pronouns and articles (function words)

(There are other more specific rules and exceptions, but this can give you a general idea of how English word stress works.)

Now, let's practice reading the below paragraph. The words in bold should be stressed. The underlined word gets the most stress.  Pause between the slash lines.

Practice exercise:

excerpt from speech by Steve Jobs, Stanford University, 2005 

You've got to find what you love.  And that is as true for work // as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill // a large part of your life, //and the only way //to be truly satisfied // is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work// is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking -- and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart,// you'll know when you find it. And like any great relationship,// it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking -- don't settle.

For additional rules and practice, you can purchase my DVDs, "American Accent Course - 50 Rules You Must Know." 

Too old to improve your accent?

I sometimes get phone calls from people in their 30's and 40's who think they are too old to change their accents. No, you are not too old!

I currently have three students in their 60's who have been making great progress with reducing their foreign accents. In fact, they have been making better progress than some of my younger students! (One is a nurse from Korea, one is a business owner from Argentina, and one is a high school teacher from Uruguay.) I am so proud of them. Their hard work and dedication are an inspiration to me. All three have the following traits in common:

1. They are highly motivated to reduce their accents because they believe a thick accent is holding them back.
2. They practice regularly.
3. They don't give up easily and they are patient with the learning process.
4. They have achieved a lot in other areas of their lives through hard work. This has helped them to develop the self-discipline that is needed.
5. They are not overly self-critical when they make mistakes.

From my experience, these above traits are often more important than age. (unless, of course, you move to an English speaking country as a child)

Pronouncing American Names

My students sometimes struggle with knowing the correct pronunciation of American names. One of my students had a problem with the name of her boss, "Doug." She called him "dog" instead!
Some names can be confusing because they are similar. For example:

"Brett" and "Brad"
"Joanne and "Joan"
"Kristin" and "Christine"
"Jan," "Jen" and "Jane"
"Don" and "Dawn"
"Greg" and "Craig"

Other times the names are simply difficult to pronounce, depending on your native language.

Here is a website that helps you to pronounce American names. I think it will be very useful for some of you. Make sure that you can correctly pronounce the name of the person who will be interviewing you for a job. Also, learn the correct pronunciation of the names of your American co-workers to feel more confident when interacting with them.

http://www.hearnames.com/

Which names are difficult for you to pronounce?

Easy way to memorize vocabulary?

A student, Mohammad Ali Mohammad, asked me the following question:

Madam Lisa, I try to memorize vocabulary but I cannot. What is an easy way to memorize?

My answer:

1. Try to use the word immediately by creating your own sentence. Say it aloud. Don't just read the word from a book or a dictionary. Saying the words aloud is very powerful for memorization.

2. Make a word list and study the same words every few days until they are imprinted in your mind.

3. Google the word to see how it's used in different contexts.

4. Have a dictionary. (not just an online dictionary, but an actual book) When you learn the meaning of a new word, underline it. Then, once in a while scan your dictionary looking for the underlined words and check to see if you still remember the meaning. It's a nice way to see your own progress. I used this method with learning French. It was so exciting to look through my dictionary and to see how many words I didn't know just six months before. It encouraged me to keep learning and to become fluent.

Do you readers have any other suggestions?

Confusing English Words

When you pronounce a word, do you worry that it sounds like a different word? Have people been confused or have they misunderstood you?

Here are some that my students often confuse:

can and can't
Doug and dog
Brett and Brad (men's names)
series and serious
staff and stuff
sheet and shit
this and these
of and off

Which ones can you add to this list?

Great New Site for Practicing your Pronunciation

An English teacher from Brazil, whose name is Mayli Brasil (yes, that's really her last name!), came to LA to take American Accent classes with me for a few weeks. (that's a photo of Mayli and me.) She told me about a great new website which can help you with practicing your pronunciation. It's wonderful because it's got many video clips with captions that you can pause after each line. There is a great feature for you to record your voice after each sentence. Then it gives you a score. You can click on the individual words to hear the pronunciation or to see the meaning. You can also enter your TOEFL score and it will give you videos which are at your proficiency level.

I highly recommend this site for practicing your pronunciation! It has so many interesting videos to watch.

Thanks Mayli! It was great meeting you. Say hello to your English students in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Here is the site. Let me know how you like it:

http://www.englishcentral.com/

Does "Siri" on your IPhone 4S understand your accent?

Some of my accent reduction clients have complained that the new voice recognition technology doesn't understand their heavy accent. I would like to hear your experiences with Siri and other similar applications.

Here is an excerpt from an article on Huffingtonpost:

"It can be frustrating because Siri forces me to pronounce my questions over and over again and sometimes the app won't understand me at all," said Latina Sandra Ortiz, new owner of the iPhone 4S, after recording the video, "but it always understands my husband!"

Here is a comment from Apple:

"The more you use Siri, the better it will understand you. It does this by learning about your accent and other characteristics of your voice. Siri uses voice recognition algorithms to categorize your voice into one of the dialects or accents it understands. As more people use Siri and it’s exposed to more variations of a language, its overall recognition of dialects and accents will continue to improve, and Siri will work even better."read whole article

What are your experiences?