American Accent
Atul Sharma
9999 5989 64
Salient Features of
American Accent
 The nasal twang
 The aerodynamic accent
 Elasticity
 Crystal clarity
 Wafer crispy
 The rolling R’s
The Nasal Twang
 It sounds funny to produce a nasal
twang.
 This calls for a requisite pressure of
air through your nostrils.
 Words like neither, name, Maryland,
America…
The Aerodynamic Accent
 The cushion of air that props up a speech.
 Imparts sheer crispness and freshness
laced with clarity.
 The airborne words take their original
shape.
 It gives a special shape & volume to words.
 Makes the speech more animated and
flamboyant.
Elasticity
 Tongue acts like a string of rubber band
and strums against the palate of mouth.
 It sounds stretchable and frisky.
 The resilience never lets words lose their
original shape.
 Words get stretched to a breaking point
and yet sound smart with a comforted
speed.
Crystal Clarity
 It is a crystal clear accent…
 Gives an animated outlining to the words…
 Use your Adam’s apple to produce a
comforted shrillness…
 It imparts a differentiated 3-D surround
quality to the speech.
 Makes it a predictably accurate accent.
Wafer Crispy
 It imparts a special flavour to the
speech.
 Makes your speech sound wafer
crispy.
 You have to work upon the bass of
your voice to develop such crispy
clarity.
The Rolling R’s
 Roll your tongue while pronouncing r’s
 Use your tongue like rubber and harden
the tip of the tongue by rolling it a bit.
 Just stretch the first half of the word,
and let go the other half by striking your
tongue back against the palate.
To Top It All
 Flex your Tongue muscles.
 Work on nasal twang with a buzzing nose.
 Use the bass voice to create a crispy
clarity.
 Strain your Adam’s apple to produce the
comforted shrillness.
 Stretch your tongue like rubber band and
strum it against the palate.
The End Result
 You’ll feel at home with Americans.
 Add to the quality of call and save
silly repetition.
 Helps you strike instant rapport.
There are some characteristic
differences in the way Indians
speak English versus the American
way
The way Indians speak
 Presence of harder sounds
 Faster Speed – 220 words per minute
 Weak word emphasis, intonation and
pronunciation on English words and
phrases. This could be due to faster rate of speech and there
being no stress in languages here in India
 Long sentences and words used
 Differences of syllable emphasis
The way Americans speak
 American intonations – ‘T R O L I’
concept
 American Reductions
 Speed – 140-160 words per minute
 Shorter sentences and words
 Proper Intonation
Stages of Learning American Accent
 Accent neutralization process
 American accent adoption
 Continuous Learning Process
Unvoiced & Voiced
Consonant Sounds
 Unvoiced (voiceless) - The vocal cords do
not vibrate.
 Voiced - The sound is made by vibrating
the vocal cords (voice box). To test
whether you are making the sound voiced,
put your fingers on your voice box. With a
voiced sound you should feel a vibration.
All vowels are voiced.
Unvoiced
P
T
Voiced
B
D
K
S
Sh
G
Z
Zh
F
V
V
M
Ch
Th (as in thanks)
W
N
J
Th (as in the)
R
L
Vowel Sounds
Vowel Shades
AA
Aw
Oh
oo
AA
Ae
ee
I
Vowels
Long
â
ê
î
ô
û
as in father
as in they
as in deep
as in clover
as in fool
Short
a as in cup
e as in pet
i as in dip
o as in pot
u as in put
Diphthongs
ae
au
ei
eu
oe
ui
as in high
as in how
as in day
as in 'red-blue'
as in boy
as in gooey
How do I sound American?
There is an expression in America, “Go with
the flow”. One really important thing is to
relax when you are speaking American
English. The more you try to pronounce
every single word clearly, the harder it is
for the average American to understand
you.
The American T
The American T is influenced very strongly
by intonation and its position in a word or
phrase.
1st Rule for T
T is T at the beginning of a word or in a
stressed syllable.
Examples,
Tina taxed Ted’s temper.
Tom and Tasha were too tense to Tango in
Taiwan.
Tell Tyler to take two turns this time.
1st Rule for T
Terry told Tim to take turns this time.
Thirteen and fourteen and fifteen make forty
two.
2nd Rule for T
T is D in the middle of a word.
Examples
Betty bought a bit of better butter.
The brittle metal snapped.
Put a little water in it.
Eddie was a little bitter.
Betty put a sweater on.
2nd Rule for T
Let him wait a little bit.
Go get a letter opener.
The meeting was at one.
3rd rule for T
T is held at the end of a word.
Examples:
Take it. It’s hot.
It’s what they wanted to get.
Put them back in the pot.
Set the clock back at the event.
What did you find at the site?
4th Rule for T
T is held before N in -tain and –ten endings.
Examples:
We tried to shorten the class.
Betty had written about the fountain of
youth.
The sumo wrestlers had eaten well to fatten
up.
4th Rule for T
Whitney’s rotten kitten has bitten Martin.
The mountain peak was invisible.
5th Rule for T
T is silent after N with lax vowels.
Example:
Don’t interrupt him.
Why are you interfering in our matter.
Is he going at the center?
Where is the enter key?
Letter ‘R’
Emphasis
Situation
Examples
1.Weak
If R is in the beginning of
the word
Problem,
process
1.Medium
If R is in the middle of the
word
Charges,
Charter
1.Strong
If R is at the end of the
word
Dollar, Car, Sir
O becomes A
God
Contact
Broad
Policy
Shopping
The American ou & ow
[ow] cow, bow, powder, chowder
[ou] sound. Loud, louder, cloud
Letter ‘L’ Emphasis
1. ‘Y’ gets added
to ‘L’
Situation
Examples
 Sale becomes Sa-yle
Male, Gale
 Hell becomes He-yle
Letter ‘I’ Emphasis
Letter ‘I’ Emphasis
Situation
Examples
I (ee) becomes ‘ai’
Semi becomes
‘sem-ai’
Anti, Vitamin
The ‘ae’ sound
Transfer
Change
Past
Last
Can’t
The ‘ae’ sound
Last Saturday, on the last day January, we
planned a national travel package to Los
Angeles.
Understanding Syllables
Try pronouncing these words
Great
Put
Cut
Flat
Rule
Mine
Oak
Have
Paula
Copy
Gorgeous
Problem
Promote
Content
Travel
Layout
Now try these words…
Abdomen
Energy
Holiday
Beautiful
Promotion
Computer
Microchip
Deposit
Dictionary Definition
A unit of spoken language consisting of a
single uninterrupted sound formed by a
vowel, diphthong, or syllabic consonant
alone, or by any of these sounds preceded,
followed, or surrounded by one or more
consonants.
Word
Syllable Breakdown
Number of syllables
dog
dog
1
green
green
1
quite
quite
1
quiet
qui-et
2
orange
o-range
2
table
ta-ble
2
expensive
ex-pen-sive
3
interesting
in-ter-est-ing
4
realistic
re-a-lis-tic
4
unexceptional
un-ex-cep-tio-nal
5
Stressed Syllable
The emphasis placed on the sound or syllable
spoken most forcefully in a word or
phrase.
 A one-syllable word is never divided.
For Example
boat
good
Knelt
Cut
Syllable Rules
1. To find the number of syllables:
---count the vowels in the word,
---subtract any silent vowels, (like the silent "e" at
the end of a word or the second vowel when two
vowels a together in a syllable)
---subtract one vowel from every dipthong,
(diphthongs only count as one vowel sound.)
---the number of vowels sounds left is the same as
the number of syllables.
VCCV Rule
When a word contains more than one vowel,
it could follow the VCCV or vowelconsonant-consonant-vowel
pattern. Divide the word into syllables by
drawing a dash between the two
consonants. These are called Closed
Syllables.
Some examples
 Nap-kin
 Pic-nic
 Doc-tor
 Den-tist
 Exam-ple
 For-mat
 En-ter
 In-sert
VCV Rule
When a word contains a vowel, consonant,
and a vowel it will be divided based on the
sound the first vowel makes. If the first
vowel is long, divide after that
vowel. These are called Open Syllables.
Some Examples
 Ra-dar
 Ba-ker
 Ho-tel
 Pu-pils
 Coo-ler
 Ma-ker
 Mo-tel
 If the first vowel is short, divide after the
consonant.
For Examples
 Cab-in
 Fif-ty
 Shiv-er
 Riv-er
Compound Words
Divide compound words between the two words
which forms the compound word.
For Example
Home-work
Foot-ball
Dog-house
Soft-ware
Car-pool
Rail-road
Gate-way
When a word has an affix, it is divided
between the root and the affix.
 Re-run
 Soft-ness,
 Cry-ing
 Re-play
 Great-ness
 Divide between two vowels when they are
sounded separately.
[di et, cru el]
 Vowels that are sounded alone form their
own syllable.
[dis o bey, a live, u ni form]
 When a word ends in l-e preceded by a
consonant, divide before the consonant.
For Example
Tur-tle
ca-ble
this-tle
Cas-tle
The logy rule
 Bi-ol-ogy
 Psy-chol-ogy
 Phy-siol-ogy
The Graphy rule
 Photography
 Geography
 Lithography
The tion rule
 Nation
 Dictation
 Completion
 Situation
 Modulation
 Communication
 Notation
 Systemization
The ity rule
 Simplicity
 Electricity
 Complexity
 Formality
 Nationality
 Possibility