American Accent Training with Online Audio

Barron's Educational Series, Ann Cook

• Publisher: Barrons Educational Services
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781438010359
• eBook ISBN: 9781438065038
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: English Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Optimized for use as an eBook, American Accent Training is a great training tool for classroom or personal use!

American Accent Training has not only gained wide respect as a self-teaching program among students and business people, but more and more speech trainers, teachers, and speech therapists also use it as a valuable teaching tool in their speech classes. 

In this book, you will find:

• A linguistically logical structure that follows a direct sequence of lessons and an easy path to understanding
• 
  Pronunciation exercises that cover all vowel sounds, consonants, blends, diphthongs, and much more
  

The online audio, accessible via Barron's Online Learning Hub, features professional male and female voices that have been carefully selected to represent authentic American pronunciation and intonation.
 

1

The American Sound

Deepen your voice, project it out!

LET’S START AT THE BEGINNING

Track 8

As the philosophers say, start with yourself and define your terms. What are the parts of your mouth? How do they interact? What is a consonant? What is a vowel? Let’s take a tour of the mouth, starting with the most basic sound.

Exercise 1-1: The Starting Point—Mmmm . . .

Let’s start with the mmmm sound. It’s super easy to do. All you do is put your lips together and hum. You’ll notice a couple things here. Your lips are touching and the air is coming out through your nose in a continuous stream. Put your hand on your throat and say mmmm, and observe that you can feel a vibration in your fingertips. This means that the M sound is spoken and not whispered.

Mmmmmm . . .

This exercise tells you four important things about the consonant M:

1.Point of contact (lips)

2.Where the air comes out (nose)

3.How the air comes out (glide)

4.If the sound is spoken or whispered (spoken)

Exercise 1-2: Combining Sounds

Track 9

Now that you know where things are, let’s turn it into something. In a deep voice, say the following out loud. We’re adding two more consonants at the lip position: P & B.

Mmm

Ah

1.mah

2.mah-mah

3.pah

4.pah-pah

5.bah

6.bah-bah

Exercise 1-3: Pronunciation & Cadence

Track 10

In your deepest voice, repeat these syllables. To get the physical experience of intonation, either stretch a rubber band, snap your fingers, or tap the table. Repeat this ten times.

1.MAH-mah

2.mah-MAH

3.PAH-pah

4.pah-PAH

5.BAH-bah

6.bah-BAH

Exercise 1-4: Pure Sound

Track 11

Let’s put this in context. Using the äh sound, repeat the following sounds. Don’t worrry about what it means, just repeat the sounds in a deep, confident voice. That little upside-down e sounds like uh.

1.bä bläs diz jäb

2...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: Read This First
• Chapter 1 The American Sound
• Chapter 2 Word Linking & Phrasing
• Chapter 3 Cat? Caught? Cut?
• Chapter 4 The American T
• Chapter 5 The American R
• Chapter 6 The El
• Chapter 7 Reduced Sounds
• Chapter 8 Tee Aitch
• Chapter 9 S or Z?
• Chapters 1–9 Review and Expansion
• Chapter 10 More Reduced Sounds
• Chapter 11 “V” as in Victory
• Chapter 12 Tense and Lax Vowels
• Chapter 13 The Ridge
• Chapter 14 Grammar in a Bigger Nutshell
• Chapter 15 Practical Application
• Chapter 16 Nasal Consonants
• Chapter 17 Throaty Consonants
• Chapters 1–17 Review and Expansion
• Nationality Guides
• Answer Key
• ESL Teacher’s Guide