Transcript 0:00 Maybe it's not that your English is bad, but maybe it is your accent that's not good. Improve your accent to improve your comprehension and your pronunciation. 0:14 Many people say, "Oh, I don't want to sound like a native speaker," or, "I just want to speak English and understand native speakers." Okay, fine. But how can you get there? 0:28 How can you reach this goal of understanding how native speakers speak, and how can you improve your speaking and pronunciation? By improving your accent, and that's how native speakers can understand you better as well. 0:46 Now, the question is: how can you improve your accent and pronunciation? 0:51 In this episode, I will talk about some very simple tips and tricks from a book that I have benefited from myself, and now I want to help you improve your accent. 1:06 These tips and techniques will help you speak better with more fluency and with more confidence. It will help you understand native speakers, and it will help native speakers understand you. So if you're ready, 1:23 let's get started. Hello, and welcome to The English Zone Podcast. This is your host, Z. In today's episode, I'm going to talk about a book. 1:35 The name of the book is American Accent Training, and the author's name is Ann Cook, A-N-N C-O-O-K. 1:46 This book is designed to help people like you, to help non-native English speakers to improve their accent and, more specifically, their American accent. 2:00 If you want to improve your accent, just like me, if you want to speak like me, probably, if you work really hard, because I am also not a native speaker. If you may have 2:15 listened to some of my episode, I've talked about my English learning journey and that I am not a native speaker. 2:23 And, uh, in my English learning journey, I actually used this book myself a lot when I was, uh, learning English 2:31 to improve my accent and my, uh, fluency and my pronunciation, and I was so passionate about it, and I used this book. And so-- and I wanna help you now improve your accent. 2:46 The techniques and tips mentioned in this book are actually really practical, and you can easily apply these techniques. 2:58 The book is divided into chapters, so you're going to be focusing on different topics and different chapters and, of course, different aspects of the American accent, 3:12 specific parts of the accent, such as pronunciation, stress, intonation. You know, intonation, like the musicality of the language or the music, the up and down, that's called intonation, and rhythm. 3:30 Let's go through some of the key techniques and tips that are mentioned in the book. The first one is about mastering your pronunciation. How can you master your pronunciation? 3:45 Obviously, pronunciation is very crucial. It's a very important element of achieving American accent or achieving fluency. 4:00 And the book focuses on the importance of articulating each sound and provides various exercises to help you recognize and produce the sounds correctly. That's one thing that the book talks about. 4:17 And I'm gonna give you guys some really, really, uh, good examples from the book at the end of this episode. But I wanna talk about the main points that the book focuses on. The second one is about syllable stress. 4:32 Syllable stress. You know, like, every word are broken down into different parts, different little parts, and each part is called syllable. 4:46 And a syllable is like, uh, the part between a vowel and the next vowel, all the consonants in between. Like, for example, the word beautiful. Beau-ti-ful. You see? 5:01 So you hear three parts, and those are called syllables. And so one of the main characteristics of 5:09 American accent is, or any accent really, is the stress placed on specific syllables in a word, and the book teaches you how to stress the right syllable in a word, 5:24 and this will make your speech sound more natural and fluent. Like, for example, like I said, the word beautiful. Where's the stress? Which syllable takes the stress? Beautiful, right? 5:41 You don't say beauti-ful or beautiful. Beautiful. Encourage. Encourage. Computer, right? 5:54 And this is a very, very important step that you need to take into consideration when you want to 6:04 scale your accent or take your accent to the next level, knowing exactly what syllable takes the stress or takes the accent. 6:16 Another really, really important, uh, part of accent that the book focuses on or talks about a lot is intonation. 6:27 Intonation refers to the rising and falling of the pitch in a sentence. So you see, the book starts by helping you perfect 6:41 your pronunciation, you know, the pronunciation of words, and then helping you where to put the stress on a word, which syllable takes the stress. 6:54 And then it goes on talking about intonation, which is the rise and fall of, of your speech in a sentence, from word 7:08 to sentence, a bigger part of the language. And this book helps you understand the different intonation patterns used in American English and how to use them correctly to convey the right meaning. 7:26 Because a lot of times, uh, when you speak a sentence, right, or when you read a sentence, the way you use your intonation changes the meaning 7:42 of the sentence probably, but also changes the way other people understand you, right? Or maybe they will not understand you. Like for example, simple sentence, Jack likes cars. 8:01 If you say, "Jack likes cars?" That's like a surprise, right? What? He likes cars? You see how the intonation goes up at the end of the sentence? But a normal statement would be, "Jack likes cars." 8:20 Right? So this is just one small example about the importance of intonation. All right. Let's move on to another aspect of American accent, which is rhythm. 8:38 R-H-Y-T-H-M. What is rhythm? Well, let me first explain something really unique about American accent. American English has a very distinct rhythm that is different from 8:58 other English variations and accents. And this book provides really good examples for you to understand and practice this aspect of the American accent. And then finally, listening. 9:14 Listening is a crucial part of learning an accent or learning a language in general. I always say listening, listening, listening. So it's a very, very important part of 9:27 learning a language, but also perfecting or improving your accent. And this book provides audio recordings to accompany the exercises. So if you buy this book, you'll also get the audio for the whole book. 9:44 So, so this will allow you listen to the, the speaker, whoever is reading the book, 9:54 and repeat the sounds and patterns that are taught in the book, whether being intonation or syllable or pronunciation or rhythm, whatever. So you're really killing two birds with one shot. 10:11 You are gaining two important skills, one being your accent and the other 10:23 really improving your English all together as you listen along and do the exercises in the book and practice your speaking. So those are the main parts that are taught in the book. 10:40 I highly recommend it. I highly recommend that you get this book and check it out for yourself. And the next part in this podcast is going to be important examples that are 10:57 taught in the book. I'm going to talk about those examples, and you will see how by making these small changes in your accent, you will understand native speakers better, and native speakers will understand you better. 11:16 So let's talk about those examples. This part is really important because in this part, I'm gonna talk about some really, really good examples from the book. Examples about pronunciation, stress syllables, 11:34 rhythm, and intonation. Intonation is actually my favorite part because this contains 11:43 falling and rising of your sound, you know, kind of like the music, the up and down of the language, of the-- of your speech, right? Let me give you an example. My name is Jack. 12:01 This is the correct pronunciation, the correct intonation that-- or the way Americans speak, right? My name is Jack. At the end of the sentence, your voice goes down, right? 12:18 You don't say, "My name is Jack. I live in New York." Right? You say, "My name is Jack, and I live in New York." 12:32 This is one important part or something that you're going to learn in this book about intonation. Another really, really important part of intonation is what? Word connections. How 12:49 each word connects to the next word. Because in English, and probably in every language, um, we don't say or we don't speak word by word by word. No. It's like chunks of words together. 13:07 We say them all together sometimes, or certain words are connected together and, uh, we... when we speak, they're all connected. Let me give you an example. They tell me that I'm easier to understand. 13:24 They tell me that I am easier to understand. They tell me that I am easier to understand. They tell me that I am easier to understand. 13:42 You see the last part or the last sentence, I said everything word by word, but that's not how Americans speak. That's not how native speakers speak. The way they speak is, "They tell me that I'm easier to understand." 13:59 They tell me that I am, right? The T, that I am, turns into D, that I am. They tell me that I'm easier to understand. Or another example for that would be 14:15 instead of saying, "But I," you say, "But I." For example, I like sushi, but I don't like fish. I like sushi, but I don't like fish. But I don't like fish. 14:33 So you really have to pay attention to these, uh, word connections, how, uh, some words connect together, and you're going to learn all of that in the book 14:45 as you practice and as you, um, read along and listen along to the lessons that are taught in the book. 14:55 And like I said, the book kind of starts with pronunciation lessons, like word pronunciation, and this is like a very, very important part in every language, right? Knowing how to pronounce every word. 15:10 So that's the first step, learning how each word is pronounced, but then learning to connect every word based on the sentence or if it's a vowel that comes after that verb or depending on, 15:28 uh, the way you speak and the mood and the emotions that put into each word, but also in each sentence because it changes the meaning, right? Um, [clears throat] 15:43 like there's this-- When you read the book, when you study the book, there's this, um, there's this paragraph that you will continue seeing in the book, and you're going to practice a lot with this paragraph. 15:58 I'm going to read it to you and point out, point out, not point out, right? [laughs] That's another good example. 16:06 Point out or point out some really, really important things that you will study in the book when you read this paragraph. All right, let's go. Hello. My name is Jack. I am taking American accent training. 16:23 There's a lot to learn, but I hope to make it as enjoyable as possible. I should pick up on the American intonation pattern pretty easily. Although the only way to get it is to practice all the time. 16:42 I use the up and down, or peaks and valleys, intonation more than I used to. I've been paying attention to pitch too. It's like walking down a staircase. 16:56 I've been talking to a lot of Americans lately, and they tell me that I'm easier to understand. Anyway, I could go on and on, but the important thing is to listen well and sound good. Well, what do you think? Do I? 17:14 So in this short paragraph, actually, there's a lot going on here because you're going to practice pronunciation of words and where the stress goes on each syllable. Like for example, practice. You don't say practice. 17:33 Or, hmm, walking down a staircase. Staircase. You don't say staircase. Or anyway. You don't say anyway. Understand. Easier. Right? 17:50 Or other parts in the paragraph where you focus on intonation or your pitch. Ups and downs in your intonation and the way you speak, right? Like, like the music. Like you say, 18:09 "I've been talking to a, a lot of Americans lately." And they tell me that I'm easier to understand, right? At the end of the sentence, you're-- it's like a staircase, right? 18:21 You go up and down, up and down, and that's how the whole language, um, is spoken. And if you learn, if you can learn these patterns of, 18:35 of pitch, like the up and down of your voice, the intonation, the connection between each sound and each word, you're going to, you're gonna learn 18:48 a whole new world of American accent, but also English language in general. Honestly, I could give a whole course. 18:56 I could teach a whole course about this book, and maybe that's something I will do in the future, um, because there's a lot of stuff that you can learn from this book. It will change the way you speak. 19:11 It will change your whole perspective about how the language is spoken. If you follow the techniques, the tricks, the lessons that are taught in this book, I promise you, in a month or two, 19:26 you're gonna be a different person. Like-- And you will be surprising yourself too. You'll be like, "What? This is crazy." So, uh, check out the book and let me know if you think 19:42 I should make more podcast episodes about the book, because there's-- this is just the tip of the iceberg that I've mentioned. 19:50 I've briefly mentioned certain, uh, or the main parts of the book, the main topics, but there's a lot going on in the book. And I love the progression of the lessons that are taught in the book. 20:06 In the beginning, it's easier. You're learning, uh, word pronunciation and the staircase and how each word is pronounced, and then going on to intonation, word connection, all of that. 20:21 And then you'll also study, like, the pronunciation of certain sounds in English. Like, we have different vowels, like cut, caught, cat, right? Cut, to cut something. And then caught, like I caught a fish. 20:38 I caught a fish. And then we have cat. I have a cat, right? 20:43 Those are, like, three distinct and unique American vowels that you will only learn by listening carefully to all of these sounds individually, but then hearing them in words. 20:58 Finally, one technique that they talk about in the book is, um, holding up a mirror. One of the best ways to know how you pronounce certain vowels or certain sounds is, 21:14 uh, speaking in front of a mirror and s- looking at your mouth and how, uh, each sound is different, and making sure that you're saying it correctly, um, based on the way that's taught in the book. 21:30 And, and seeing yourself and hearing yourself to see if you pronounce the vowels or the words correctly the way that is spoken by native speakers. So yeah. Uh, but anyway, I hope you liked this episode. 21:48 And please send me a message on Instagram at TheEnglerZone_ and let me know what you think. Should I make more lessons like this? Should I teach more accent and pronunciation lessons? 22:02 And should I make more lessons about this book? And by the way, I will put the link to purchase, to buy this book in the description below. 22:12 If you are interested in studying it yourself, you can buy it and check it out for yourself. Thanks for listening to The Englerzone Podcast, where you can learn, practice, and improve your English the easy way. 22:27 Until next time. [outro music]
