English Pronunciation. The Law of Starting Simple.

Sometimes I am asked this question:

“My English is very good so is your accent training program too simple for me?”

Let me ask you a question?  Do you know how to drive a car, or motor scooter, or ride a bicycle? Did you become a master at it the minute you began driving or riding?

Didn’t you have to learn all the different simpler skills that underpin driving ? How to balance, how to steer, how to use the brakes, how to judge the distance between you and others, and the list goes on.  You had to learn all this before you could put all these simpler abilities together, and practise them together, to gain mastery at driving or riding. 

You started simple and built on this to gain mastery.

It is the same when you want to master English pronunciation powerfully and successfully. This is why I created the speak more clearly accent reduction courses with separate sections for you to work on and master.  See the British accent sections; See the American accent sections; See the Australian accent sections. This allows you to habituate your ear and your mouth movements to operate differently from your native language. As you incorporate each element into your everyday speech, you will begin to notice how all these elements accumulate for you to gain English Pronunciation mastery.

What’s the Best Way to use the Law of Starting Simple and Gain English Pronunciation Mastery?

Number 1

Work on 1 or 2 elements first before moving to a new one.   Be brave. Choose something you know you have difficulty with. This will make the biggest impact on your clear English pronunciation.

You can work just on 1 or 2 sounds e. g. a vowel and a consonant, or you could work on 2 levels e.g. a sound you have trouble pronouncing, and how you phrase your sentences.   You may, for example, choose to work on saying the ‘th’ sound in words, and at the same time listen for how a native English speaker groups or phrases words together in longer sentences.  The phrasing helps the listener understand the main meaning you are trying to convey in the sentence.

Let’s use this sentence as an example of phrasing : “He entered the computer technology development area where
there was a large amount of security.”

In this sentence you would say from the word “He” to the word “area”  all in one phrase, and the second grouping or phrasing would be the rest of the sentence.   This means, instead of just saying everything all together and keeping on  going till the end of the sentence , you make a very slight pause  at the end of ‘area’, elongate the ‘ea’ vowel slightly, and have the ‘u’ sound at the end of ‘area’ go up slightly in pitch, before you say the next part of the sentence.

Number 2

Work on the elements you have chosen till they are automatic in everyday speech.  Don’t forget to put up reminders to use it in your everyday situations. Write yourself a note and put it on your desk, write the sound on your hand to remind you to use it, or put a note on your phone etc. Don’t be scared to use it!

One of my clients who had been using the speak more clearly program for a few months told me how she was really pleased that now she was clearer in English, a lot more of her work colleagues were coming up to her to have conversations with her, and that the conversations were more satisfying.

Number 3

Choose again. Choose again and do the same. This time you might choose a vowel, and linking and elision, or 2 vowels to work on.  Don’t forget the vowels even though I know they can be difficult to learn at times. The key is to listen and repeat, and listen and mimic again.  Pronouncing the vowels correctly can make a huge difference so people understand you better in English, and… so you don’t make embarrassing errors!     For example the difference between bitch and beach!

Comment below to let me know how you go. I’d love to hear from you!

Best wishes,

Esther