More advice for reducing your accent

1. Slow down your speech. Actually, you can speak as quickly as you wish, as long as you are pronouncing every sound of every word and you are following the rules of good stress and melody. You will notice that newscasters often speak quickly but clearly. If you cannot do that, you need to practice. Meanwhile, slow down!

2. Make sure your articulators fully touch. What are your articulators? Your lips and your tongue - the parts of your mouth used to create sounds, specifically consonant sounds. Don't get lazy and don't allow them to touch only half way. For example word "general" if said quickly and in a lazy way can be very unclear. The sounds, N R and L in the word "general" require the tongue tip to be in the front for the N, and then curled back for the R and then in the front again touching the top of your mouth for the L. That's a lot of work! Good speakers do that quickly and correctly. If you practice your tongue will get stronger, and some of these difficult sounds will require a lot less effort to produce.

To learn the correct mouth movements of the most difficult American English sounds, you can get my DVDs, "American Accent Course - 50 Rules You Must Know."

3. Dont' stop practicing!! Read aloud every day for 20 or 30 minutes. Record your voice. How does it sound? Are you pronouncing every word clearly or are you mumbling?

Best wishes!
Lisa Mojsin

American Accent Course for Japanese Speakers

The new DVD course is available. It helps Japanese speakers of English speak more clearly and learn to fix all of the most common pronunciation mistakes. Learn to correctly pronounce the difficult American consonant sounds. Fix the most common mistakes. Purchase the videos here:

http://accurateenglish.com/dvds_for_japanes_speakers.htm

Good Online Dictionary for Pronuncation

I recommend this dictionary for looking up the pronunciation of words: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/.

I like the fact that it has two different accent options - one American Accent and one British. The vowels and consonants are mostly pretty authentic to an American Accent. Many other online English dictionaries are confusing in this regard.

Also, if you have studied British English in your country, it's useful to hear both versions of the same word. Just for fun, look up the words, "better," "student" and "awful."
Big differences in the two different accents!

Don't Give Up!

How is this about accent reduction? Well, I believe that any time we have a goal, sometimes we will feel like giving up. I try to encourage all of my students to keep trying, to follow their dreams. It brings me much joy to see them succeed. Some are Hollywood actors trying to get a part in a movie, some are recently graduated MBA's going on their job interviews and others are people who are simply tired of always being asked to repeat themselves and what country they come from. I post these quotes by famous people to inspire you to keep going. Never let your dreams die! :)

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
-- Mark Twain

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. ~Albert Einstein


“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
-- Dale Carnegie

Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock. ~Author Unknown

"Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is persistence."
-- Joyce Brothers (1928-) U.S. psychologist and talk show host

"All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck - who keeps right on going - is the man who is there when the good luck comes - and is ready to receive it."
-- Robert Collier

"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."
-- Confucius

"Our greatest joy is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
-- Confucius (551-479 BC), (K'ung Fu-tse) Chinese philosopher "

"Decide carefully, exactly what you want in life, then work like mad to make sure you get it!"
-- Hector Crawford

Most Common English Words

Below is a link to a list of the 100 most common English words. These 100 words make up about one half of all written material. Learn to pronounce them perfectly and your accent will sound much better!!

Here are some from the list that are very commonly mispronounced by non-native speakers:

1. the
2. of
3. were
4. water
5. some
6. look
7. could
8. other
9. from
10. this
11. these
12. word

Can you say the above words perfectly?
Click here for the whole list.

pronunciation of the article "a"

Many accent students are confused about the correct pronunciation of the article "a." Why do some people say /ei/? You can pronounce it both ways, either as /ɘ/ or as /ei/. It just depends on how quickly you are speaking and whether you pause before the "a." /ei/ is usually used in slower speech and for special emphasis.

So, there's no right or wrong, but you will hear most people say: /ɘ/.

pronunciation of numbers - common mistakes

Here is a video lesson I just made about some common mistakes in pronouncing some difficult numbers, such as "fifty" versus "fifteen."

click here to view video.