What IS accent reduction?

You might be wondering exactly what we do here and exactly HOW you can work on “losing” your accent, so that native English speakers can understand you clearly. Well, the technical definition for “Accent Reduction,” which is also known by many other names, such as accent training, elocution, accent modification, accent neutralization, or deaccentation. And it is a systematic approach for learning or adopting a new agent and there are many, many ways, programs, and people out there who can or can try to help you achieve this goal if you are trying to change or reduce your accent.

There are a few key point to understand in order to understand HOW accent reduction works for individuals.

First, you have to be able to HEAR the different in the way you pronounce something and the ‘proper’ way to pronounce a particular sound. For example, you pronounce the word think as dink or tink.

So once you can hear the difference, it is important that you practice properly pronouncing the word/sound you are incorrectly pronouncing. So work on saying other words with that sound like: thank, thought, Thursday, weather, breathe.

Once you become more comfortable saying individual words, you should work on saying them in a sentence:

Thursday’s weather, I think, will be nice, thankfully.

It is also important to listen to others, practice practice practice. One way to quickly improve is through storytelling.

Here are 4 quick and easy tips for improving your English Pronunciation:

1. Speak slowly
2. Read out loud
3. Practice saying that last sound in each word you speak
4. practice at least 15 minutes every day