Focus on practicing the placement and intonation of American English on its own in this video. Work on phrases on the vowel “uh” – take away the words and other sounds to focus on the placement and melody of the phrases. Study with Rachel’s online … [Read more...]
This set of videos goes over stress in a sentence. Which words are generally stressed, and which unstressed? What does that sound like?
5 Tips to Improve Listening Comprehension Skills
Five tips, five secrets, five tricks to improving your listening comprehension skills! You can do this! Study how Americans speak to improve listening and pronunciation. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the … [Read more...]
Question about Speaking Slowly vs. Quickly
If you talk too fast, will people be able to understand you? Isn't it better to speak slowly and say every syllable and every word clearly? No. Rhythmic contrast is an important characteristic in American English, and in order to get that, some … [Read more...]
How to Pronounce ‘to the’ in a Sentence
Study how to pronounce ‘to the’ in a sentence—simplify it. There are many reductions in conversational American English. It’s important to know what they are to improve listening comprehension, but also to use the reductions in speech yourself. … [Read more...]
English: A Stress-Timed Language
In some languages, every syllable is the same length. In English, it sounds very awkward to make each syllable the same length. It’s important to have contrast, some long and some short syllables. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the … [Read more...]
Word Stress and Verbs
Verbs are content words, which means they will be stressed in a sentence. This means they should be louder and have an up-down shape of the voice. Study what verbs sound like in sentences. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the … [Read more...]
Word Stress and Lists
Study the intonation of phrases that involve lists so people can follow your speech more easily. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw05jLyV9Rc Video Text: In this American English pronunciation video, … [Read more...]
Changing Word Stress for Clarification
As you study the rules for word stress, know that there are times when you will stress words that might normally be unstressed to clear up a misunderstanding. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the … [Read more...]
Function Words – Pronunciation + Intonation/Word Stress
What are function words? Learn what they are and how important they are for providing rhythmic contrast in spoken English. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mS7w_np2Nw Video Text: This video will … [Read more...]
Word Stress: Sentence Position
The volume, pitch, and stress of a word depends somewhat on where it falls in a sentence. Words at the end, even stressed words, tend to be less clear. Compare stressed words at the beginning with stressed words at the end with a helpful … [Read more...]
How to Pronounce the Word THE
The word THE has two different pronunciations, depending on the beginning sound of the next word. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qw2cn8yxhU Video Text: Coming … [Read more...]
Content Words
This video goes over the different kinds of content words, and how they should sound in a sentence. YouTube blocked? Click here to see the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPbNhsCkj7k Video Text: Coming … [Read more...]