What is American Accent Training?

by Judy Ravin | |

American accent training is a professional development program designed to help non-native English speakers be understood with clarity and impact. With American accent training, learners acquire the sounds and speech patterns that comprise standard American pronunciation. Many of these sounds don’t exist in other languages, and this can create communication challenges between non-native and native English speakers. It’s important to remember that every language has a unique set of pronunciation rules and patterns. These are neither good nor bad, correct nor incorrect. They’re simply sounds and speech patterns that give meaning to language. In other words, these are the linguistic norms that enable communication to flow easily and effectively between speakers. For the purposes of this blog, I’ll refer to the American accent as standard U.S. and Canadian pronunciation. Apart from just a few vowel sounds, the pronunciation patterns of the U.S. and Canadian accents are the same.

What do you learn in American Accent Training?

Comprehensive American accent training programs focus on:

1. The 21 American English Vowel Sounds: Several sounds in American English do not exist in other languages, nor are they regularly used in British, Australian, New Zealand, and South African English. One important reason why American English differs from these other dialects is because of rhotacism: the change of a particular sound in a language. In this case, that sound is “Vocalic R” (when the letter ‘R’ follows a vowel: er, ar, or, ear, air, etc.). The standard American accent is “rhotic”, meaning that speakers pronounce “Vocalic R”. Received Pronunciation (aka British English) is non-rhotic, so words like “heart” are pronounced “hot”, and “doctor” is pronounced “doctuh”.
   
   Another notable difference between the American accent and other English dialects is the vowel sound /æ/. This is the pronunciation of the vowel in the word “yeah”. Many linguists find this to be the quintessential American accent marker. It’s not terribly common in British English, and slightly more common in Canadian English.

2. The 26 American English Consonant Sounds. This is a good time to ask, “Twenty-six consonants? How can there be twenty-six consonants and twenty-one vowels if there are only 26 letters in the alphabet?” The answer is that many English letters are pronounced in more than one way. To demonstrate this phenomenon, let’s look at the letter ‘s’. It may be pronounced as ‘s’ as in “so”, ‘z’ as in “was”, ‘sh’ as in “sugar”, and ‘zh’ as in “pleasure”. That’s why professional linguists refer to these as twenty-six consonant sounds, not as twenty-six consonant letters. American accent training teaches the articulation techniques for each of these sounds.

3. Stress (Emphasis): Every language has specific patterns for syllable stress. Using correct syllable stress helps people sound more natural. Stress also gives meaning to words and sentences. For example, the meaning between the object and to object are worlds apart. So is the difference in meaning between the words “eligible” and “illegible”. Examples such as these, where changing the syllable stress changes the meaning of the word, are seemingly endless!
   
   
4. Linking and “Hidden Letters”: It’s typical of the American accent that words often include an added sound; usually “Y” or “W”. For example, when a word has the vowel sound “eee”, and this is followed by another vowel, American speakers will add a “Hidden Y”. Can you hear the letter “y” in the words material, experience, and video? These will typically sound like materi(y)al, experi(y)ence, and vide(y)o. Try saying the following words while listening for a “Hidden W”: situation, gradual, and doing. These will sound like situ(w)ation, gradu(w)al, and do(w)ing. The reason? When a word has the “u” vowel sound, and “u” is followed by another vowel, American speakers will add a “Hidden W”.
   
   
5. Intonation: Unlike languages where a monotone pattern is the norm, the American accent has varied intonation. In other words, the way in which a person’s pitch rises and falls gives meaning to words and sentences. Can you hear the change in intonation in the following two questions?
   1. Have you eaten dinner?
   2. What did you eat for dinner?

The American accent has a rule for this. Questions that are expected to have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer end with rising intonation. Questions that are expected to be answered with anything other than ‘yes’ or ‘no’, end with falling intonation.

Like all languages, the key areas of pronunciation are vowels, consonants, stress (emphasis) and speech patterns. If pronunciation were a wheel, these four components are its spokes. It’s the unique attributes of these ‘spokes’ that give the American accent it’s defining features. All the spokes must be present for the wheel to move forward with precision. If you’re looking for an American accent training program that will move your communication forward, make sure it addresses these key areas of linguistic competency.

To learn how American accent training can be accomplished in ten hours or less, schedule a call with me here. I’d love to help!