It is interesting to note that Russian culture has its own version of idiomatic expressions that actually often have a matching version in English. The Speech Improvement Now American English Pronunciation Software therefore offers a section for idiomatic expressions to best help you comprehend the meaning of these sayings. Here are a few examples. “Арте́льный горшо́к гу́ще кипи́т.” Literal translation: An artel’s pot boils denser. English version: With a helper a thousand things are possible; Working as a team produces better results. An artel means a cooperative of workers or producers. Working as a team with us here at Speech Improvement Now will help you achieve the goal of clear effective speech, because an artel’s pot boils denser! “Без труда́ не вы́тащишь и ры́бку из пруда́.” Literal translation: Without effort, you can’t even pull a fish out of the pond. English version: No pain, no gain. Without trying and practicing every day, even when you
Read more →In my American English Pronunciation Software Program for Slavic speakers I teach how to pronounce vowels and consonants in their own categories so that each person can experience a great deal of practice for each sound. As a practical shortcut I put together words and word pairs that people frequently ask me: “What is the difference between these two words? Because they sound the same to me!” For example, if you mix up the vowels /I/ and /i/(pronounced “ee”) you will end up saying “sh*t” for “sheet” which, needless to say, will not go over well in a business meeting. Here are a few other /I/ and /i/ pairs that people frequently mix up: ship and sheep kiss and keys tin and teen lid and lead Additionally, Slavic speakers frequently mix up the /eh/ and /ae/ sounds as in “said” pronounced “sehd” – which sounds like they are saying
Read more →Do you Uptalk? Uptalk is a speech pattern in which phrases and sentences habitually end with a rising sound, as if the statement was a question. Also known as upspeak, high-rising terminal(HRT), high-rising tone, valley girl speech, Valspeak, talking in questions, rising intonation, upward inflection, interrogatory statement, and Australian Question Intonation (AQI). The term uptalk was introduced by journalist James Gorman in an “On Language” column in The New York Times, August 15, 1993. However, the speech pattern itself was first recognized in Australia and the U.S. at least two decades earlier. Confidence is important when you’re trying to build credibility. If you don’t sound confident, it’s easy for people to dismiss or be skeptical of what you’re saying, however valid it may be. One vocal habit that undermines your credibility is uptalk, the tendency to speak as though you’re asking a question. Many of us are guilty of this, and sometimes it’s so subtle we don’t even realize we’re doing it. The awareness of uptalk is critical for
Read more →Do you speak too fast? Speech rate is the term given to the speed at which you speak. Studies show speech rate alters depending on the speaker’s culture, geographical location, subject matter, gender, emotional state, fluency, profession or audience. Speech rate is the term given to the speed at which you speak. It’s calculated in the number of words spoken in a minute. A normal number of words per minute (wpm) can vary hugely. However, despite these variables, there are widely accepted guidelines. These are: Slow speech is usually regarded as less than 110 wpm, or words per minute. Conversational speech generally falls between 120 wpm at the slow end, to 160 – 200 wpm in the fast range. People who read books for radio or podcasts are often asked to speak at 150-160 wpm. Auctioneers or commentators who practice speed speech are usually in the 250 to 400 wpm range. Why change your speech rate? Generally people are not
Read more →Soft Voice Disorder A soft or quiet voice can obviously inhibit communication acheter viagra prix. If someone can’t hear what you’re saying, they can’t give you a proper response. Instead of asking you to repeat yourself, sometimes they’ll just pretend they’ve heard you and end the conversation. When some people meet a quiet talker, they may find it too much trouble to always have to try to make out what they’re saying. Instead, they’ll move on to someone they have an easier time understanding. If you want to speak in a group conversation, especially a lively one, it’s a lot harder to draw attention to yourself if you are soft spoken. If you do get to speak, it’s also more likely someone else will jump in and start talking over you. Not to mention, it becomes close to impossible to make yourself heard and socialize in louder environments like a wedding
Read more →Speaking with a Lisp A lisp is a speech impediment that affects the way an individual says words that contain the letters s and z. Most lisps are caused by incorrect tongue placement when speaking. Overbites and underbites can also cause an individual to have a lisp. Many of my clients come to me for accent reduction and I find that they have a lisp that was never corrected and is present in their own language as well as in English. There are four aspects to a lisp: Interdental lisp: This takes place when the tongue pops in and out during speech. Lateral lisp: This is a reference to the wet sound that is produced due to air breaking away from the sides of the tongue. It makes the /s/ sound appear “slushy”. Dentalised lisp: This takes place when a person put their tongues and pushes air outward. This results in
Read more →Nasal Voice Disorder In the English language, there are only three sounds that should vibrate in your nose: the m, the n, and the ng sounds. What this means is that any word you say with any of those letters or sounds will vibrate in your nasal cavity to some degree. Words like, mail, man, plan and ring for example. The result may be a whiny sound or a twang. To see if you are a nasal speaker, place a finger on each side of your nose very gently. No pressure. Say the word “believe”. Did you feel any vibration? Again, just grazing your nose with your fingers, say the word “away”. Did you vibrate? Now say the word “and.” If your nose vibrated on any of the three examples above, you may have some nasal issues. If you vibrated heavily on all three sounds, you could potentially have serious nasal issues. The good news is
Read more →[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”top-to-bottom”] How Long Does it Take to reduce or eliminate an Accent? by Ela Britchkow, Speech-Language Pathologist There is no simple answer to this question because it’s very individual and depends on several factors. It depends on how diligently you do the practice and follow up assignments. Forming new habits takes motivation, focus, time, and dedication. Old habits are hard to change, but he more you practice, the more you’ll improve. You simply must practice a sound or pattern over and over for it to become habitual. Daily practice will help your mouth and tongue develop the new ‘muscle memory’ that they need for you to articulate American English sounds correctly. It depends on how good your listening skills are. In order to reduce your accent, you must be able to hear the difference between the sounds and patterns of your native language and the sounds and patterns of American English acheter du
Read more →Will my employer cover the cost of accent modification? It has been my experience that companies will usually pay for accent modification and speech problems for their executives, CEOs, high level personnel and people they value highly. Some companies have personal development or continuing education programs that all employees can take advantage of that include accent reduction training. Ask your employer, HR specialist or Talent Acquisition person about reimbursement and accent training availability. If your company does not offer this valuable training opportunity let us know and we will contact your employer and do our best to encourage them to make our program available to their employees. After all, communication skills are critical to many job descriptions. If your employer is unable or unwilling to finance the program, we keep the cost low and offer an easy three payment plan. Accent modification skill training is an excellent investment.
Read more →Why Does the Schwa Sound Feel Ignored and Overlooked? What is the most popular sound in the English language? If you want to learn to speak American English, you need to learn about this sound. It’s the unstressed “uh” sound otherwise known as the “schwa” sound. When you encounter the schwa sound it will be disguised by all 6 of American English vowels. You will find it masquerading as the “a” in “about”; the “e” as in the second syllable of “elephant”; the “i” as in pencil; the /o/ in “condition”; “u” as in “support” and the “y” as in “ vinyl”. To teach people to identify where the shwa is hiding, you need to find the weak syllable in a word, and then identify the vowel in the weak syllable. In the above example, “about” has two syllables, “a” and “bout”. The “a” is not stressed and therefore the
Read more →To help you improve your American English Pronunciation, it’s not just all about the sounds. Accent training also includes the melody of speech or Intonation. This is the rising and falling pattern of the sentence. Think of a sentence as a line from a song. We don’t understand what a song means by reading the words alone. The meaning is also carried by the melody –the rise and fall of the notes by which the lyrics are sung and by the rhythm. Many second language speakers have difficulty in producing the American English falling and rising pitches. So how do we add melody to the words in a sentence? To stress a word, we apply a higher pitch, louder volume and stretch the vowel slightly. “I don’t Know” So…which words should I stress? Stress the last important word in a sentence. These words are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. For
Read more →Will Your Accent Cause You to Fail? By Ela Britchkow, Speech and Language Pathologist Clear understandable English pronunciation can boost your IELTS score. It can also prevent a failing grade. I am a speech and language pathologist who specializes in accent reduction. Pronunciation is graded separately and makes up 25% of your Speaking test score. To pass the Pronunciation section, of the IELTS Speaking test, requires clear easily understandable speech. There are an abundance of materials on the market to prepare you for the IELTS. Our software program, Speech Improvement Now, uniquely focuses on Pronunciation. If this is a weakness for you then specialized help in this area makes a great deal of sense. Our program will also provide you valuable support for IELTS’s Fluency and Coherence, Grammar and Vocabulary sections. You probably wouldn’t be reading this article without recognizing the importance of doing well on the IELTS. Educational institutions,
Read more →In sports, Motivation is the foundation all athletic effort and accomplishment. Without your desire and determination to improve your sports performances, all of the other mental factors, confidence, intensity, focus, and emotions, are meaningless. To become the best athlete you can be, you must be motivated to do what it takes to maximize your ability and achieve your goals. The same is true to reduce your accent. Motivation, simply defined, is the ability to initiate and persist at a task. Motivation will impact performance. It is also the only factor over which you have control. Motivation will directly impact the level of success that you ultimately achieve. If you are highly motivated to improve your performances, then you will put in the time and effort necessary to raise your game and your speech. In training and competitions, athletes arrive at a point at which it is no longer fun. The work starts
Read more →[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As unfair as it sounds, there are many stories of discrimination against people who speak with an accent. This is one of the reasons I wanted to specialize in accent modification and help people reduce their accent to the point where they will be understood easily. Is it against the law to treat employees differently because they have a foreign accent? It is lawful only if the accent materially interferes with being able to do the job. Generally, an employer may only base an employment decision on accent if effective oral communication in English is required to perform job duties and the individual’s foreign accent interferes with his or her ability to communicate orally in English. However, our economy is now dominated by service oriented job positions. So the likelihood of needing to speak English clearly and effectively is pretty much becoming the norm. So experiencing discrimination based on having
Read more →YES, you can change your accent but you will need good guidance and lots of practice. Motivation is a key factor. This can be driven by: To what degree you believe your accent is interfering with your communication vendre du viagra. Is it significantly impacting job performance, your advancement? Are you avoiding conversations in your everyday life? Are you concerned that it will lower your score on an English proficiency tests, such as the IELTS? Do people ask you to repeat yourself so often that you’re frustrated? Or do people focus more on your accent than they do on what you’re saying? How you speak is a very personal issue, and changing it can make you uncomfortable on an unconscious level for a while, as you may feel that changing your speech is changing YOU. The good part of accent reduction is that once you master it you can then decide when you
Read more →A study conducted by Diane Markley and Patricia Cukor-Avila shows how regional accents can affect hiring. The study involved 56 hiring professionals who were asked to make judgments about potential based solely on how candidates, with different regional accents, sounded. The hirers were asked to judge if each speaker sounded educated or uneducated, intelligent or unintelligent, energetic or lazy, uptight or laid back, outgoing or withdrawn, assertive or docile. Of the 10 regional accents, a distinctive “New Jersey” accent received the most negative rating by hiring professionals. When asked to decide what types of jobs the individuals were suited for based solely on their accents, only 5 percent of the hirers selected the New Jersey speaker for positions requiring a high level of customer contact and more than 64 percent selected the New Jersey speaker for positions requiring little technical expertise and little-to-no customer contact. Research at the University of Chicago
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