Pitch and Intonation in American English

Over the past few months, I’ve been hearing from a lot of non-native speakers who are concerned that they sound monotonous, robotic, bored, or even annoyed when they’re speaking English. They’ve been working on their accent, but they feel like something is missing. When you’re trying to improve how you sound in English, you’ll find a lot of tips out there. (You can find quite a few of them right here!) But if you really … Read the article and watch the video lesson

You’ve probably noticed that I love talking about stress and intonation. In my opinion, speaking with clear stress and expressive intonation will help native speakers understand you better. You’ll communicate what you really mean, sound more natural, and feel more confident as a result. Even if you recognize that stress and intonation are important, you may feel confused about why they matter, what they communicate, or how to get started changing the way you use … Read the article and watch the video lesson

Have you ever had to repeat yourself several times when giving your phone number in English? After all, accuracy matters! You want to make sure the other person gets the right number so they can actually reach you. How we say phone numbers varies from culture to culture and country to country. When I moved to Argentina, one of the first things I learned was how to give my phone number so that people would … Read the article and watch the video lesson

 Simple changes can often be the most effective. This is a guiding principle in most everything I do, including accent and communication coaching. So often we think that we need to make big, dramatic changes in order to get the results we want. This mindset can keep us from taking action because we think that we’re further from our goals than we actually are. When it comes to improving your accent and sounding more … Read the article and watch the video lesson