Mastering the American Accent

This combination book and audio instructional program is designed to diminish the accents of men and women who speak English as their second language. It will help them speak standard American English with clarity, confidence, and accuracy. Specific exercises concentrate on vowel sounds, problematic consonants such as V, W, TH, the American R, and the often confusing American T...

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This combination book and audio instructional program is designed to diminish the accents of men and women who speak English as their second language. It will help them speak standard American English with clarity, confidence, and accuracy. Specific exercises concentrate on vowel sounds, problematic consonants such as V, W, TH, the American R, and the often confusing American T sound. It teaches them to employ correct syllable stress, emphasize the correct words in a sentence for native sounding rhythm, speak with American intonation, link words for smoother speech flow, use common word contractions, and more. Additional topics that often confuse ESL students are also discussed and explained. They include distinguishing between casual and formal speech, homophones (for instance, they're and there), recognizing words with silent letters (comb, receipt, and others), and avoiding embarrassing pronunciation mistakes, such as mixing up "beach" and "bitch." Students are familiarized with many irregular English spelling rules and exceptions, and are shown how such irregularities can contribute to pronunciation errors. A native language guide references problematic accent issues of 13 different language backgrounds. Correct lip and tongue positions for all sounds are discussed in detail. There is also a link to downloadable audio that uses male and female voices to coach correct American-style pronunciation.

Lisa Mojsin teaches accent reduction in Los Angeles. She is director of Accurate English, an accent reduction training company. (accurateenglish.com) She specializes in working with actors in Hollywood, TV announcers, and business professionals for whom correct pronunciation is a must. She is passionate about helping non-native speakers of English communicate confidence, clarit...

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Lisa Mojsin teaches accent reduction in Los Angeles. She is director of Accurate English, an accent reduction training company. (accurateenglish.com) She specializes in working with actors in Hollywood, TV announcers, and business professionals for whom correct pronunciation is a must. She is passionate about helping non-native speakers of English communicate confidence, clarity and accuracy.

Her typical non-entertainment industry clients are foreign born physicians, lawyers, software engineers and corporate professionals.

She has a master's degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. She taught at Santa Monica College, West Los Angeles College and UCLA-Extension. She also taught in China, Germany and New Zealand and has worked as an interpreter in France and for the Olympic Games.

She developed a passion for accents and correct pronunciation when she was getting her bachelor's degree in French and German from UCLA.

Introduction vi
Chapter 1: The Vowel Sounds 1
Production of Vowels 1
Main Vowel Sounds of American English 3
/i/ as in meet 4
/I/ as in sit 4
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Introduction vi
Chapter 1: The Vowel Sounds 1
Production of Vowels 1
Main Vowel Sounds of American English 3
/i/ as in meet 4
/I/ as in sit 4
/eɪ/ as in take 6
/ɛ/ as in get 7
/æ/ as in fat 8
/ɑ/ as in father 9
/ə/ as in fun 10
/ɔ/as in saw 11
/oʊ/ as in boat 13
/ʊ/ as in good 14
/u/ as in too 14
/ər/ as in bird 16
/aɪ/ as in time 16
/aʊ/ as in house 17
/ɔɪ/ as in boy 18
Chapter 2: Vowels in Detail 19
Review of /I/ and /i/ Sounds 19
Review of /ɛ/ and /æ/ Sounds 20
Review of /ə/, /ɑ/, /ɔ/, and /ou/ Sounds 21
The Problematic o 22
Three Different Ways to Pronounce the o 25
Review of /æ/ versus /ə/ 25
The American /ɔ/ Sound 26
Review of /ɛ/, /æ/, /ɑ/, /ɔ/, /ə/, and /oʊ/ 28
The Problematic /ʊ/ Sound 29
Review of /ʊ/ and /u/ Sounds 30
Comparing /u/ and /yu/ 30
Review of the /ər/ Sound 31
Vowels Followed by the /r/ Sound 32
Chapter 3: Consonants 33
Forming American Consonants 33
Voiceless and Voiced Consonants 34
Vowel Length and Voiced and Voiceless Consonants 35
Stops and Continuants 37
Chapter 4: Problematic Consonants 39
The Various t Sounds of American English 39
The “Fast d” Sound 43
The /tʃr/ Sound: tr 44
The /dʒr/ Sound: dr 44
The /dʒ/ Sound: du and d + y 45
The /tʃ/ Sound: tu and t + y 45
Words Ending in -ed 46
The th Sound 49
The American /r/ 53
The American /l/ 56
Understanding /l/ Versus /r/ 58
The /v/ Sound 61
Understanding /b/ Versus /v/ 62
The /w/ Sound 63
Understanding /v/ Versus /w/ 64
The /s/ and /z/ Sounds 65
The /ŋ/ Sound: Pronouncing ng 68
Consonant Clusters 70
Chapter 5: Syllable Stress 73
Stressed and Reduced Vowels 73
Comparing Stressed and Reduced Vowels 76
Dangers of Stressing the Wrong Syllable 78
General Rules for Stress Placement 79
Two-Syllable Words 79
Noun and Verb Pairs 80
Words Ending in -tion and -ate 81
-ate Endings of Verbs and Nouns 81
More Stressed Suffixes 82
Rules for Prefixes 82
Syllable Stress Changes 84
Reduced Vowels for Review 86
Chapter 6: Word Stress 89
Compound Nouns 89
Proper Stress with Adjectives 91
Phrasal Verbs 93
Noun Forms of Phrasal Verbs 94
Abbreviations and Numbers 95
Names of Places and People 96
Word Stress Within a Sentence 96
Lengthening the Main Vowel in Stressed Words 96
Which Words Should I Stress? 98
Content Words 98
Content Words in Detail: Verbs 99
Stress Nouns but Not Pronouns 99
Content Words in Detail: Adjectives 100
Reducing Vowels in Unstressed Words 101
Weak Forms 101
Reducing Pronouns 104
Strong Forms 105
Thought Groups and Focus Words 106
Contrastive Stress 107
Chapter 7: Intonation 109
Falling Intonation 109
Statements 109
Questions 109
Rising Intonation 110
Non-final Intonation 111
Unfinished Thoughts 111
Introductory Words 112
Series of Words 112
Expressing Choices 112
Wavering Intonation 113
Chapter 8: Sound Like a True Native Speaker 115
Linking Words for Smoother Speech Flow 115
Rules for Linking 116
Linking Consonant to Vowel 116
Linking Consonant to Same Consonant 119
Linking Two Consonants 120
Linking Vowel to Vowel 122
Linking Vowels Within a Word 123
Contractions 125
Commonly Contracted Words 126
Conditional Tense and Contractions 130
Casual Versus Formal Speech 132
Rules and Patterns of Casual Speech 133
Chapter 9: Memorizing the Exceptions 135
Same Spelling, Different Pronunciation 136
Two Correct Pronunciations 137
Words with Dropped Syllables 137
Words with Silent Letters 138
Homophones 139
Native Language Guide 141
Chinese 141
Farsi 149
Filipino Languages 152
French 155
German 160
Indian Languages 164
Indonesian 168
Japanese 172
Korean 176
Portuguese 180
Russian 184
Spanish 188
Vietnamese 193
Index 199
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