Maybe you want to reduce your French accent because you realize that you are not always understood by your American colleagues. Or you just want to improve your pronunciation in English to speak more naturally.
The SBFG video of this week will help you. You will see how important the rhythm of the language is in English (yes, yes, it is absolutely crucial, despite the fact that it is rarely tackled in courses).
As one of my colleagues, a specialist in prosody (the musicality of the language) says, “Paying attention to your rhythm in English is not what makes you better understood, it’s what makes you understood or not.”
Don’t panic. Today you will see how to easily improve the musicality of your English, everywhere and without special tools. It’s true that it’s not the easiest thing to change in your way of speaking, but it’s quite possible to work your rhythm in English everyday, without necessarily changing your habits. More details in the video 😉
As a bonus, the work you do on your pronunciation helps you better understand, especially Americans! Understanding is directly related to the perception of sounds, rhythms, stronger syllables and especially those that are weaker (hence not well articulated). Working on the production of these sounds also means improving your understanding!
If you’ve watched the SBFG video “Improve your Accent: Syllable Stress”, you already know that English and French are very different in terms of accentuation.
Fortunately, you don’t need to know by heart all the “rules” of pronunciation in English to improve your accent. Small explanations like the ones you find in SBFG can of course help you optimize the work you do on your accent-you will know better hot to target your actions.
Your practice remains the most important thing. That’s why all the videos that help you improve your accent have an interactive part!
Don’t miss these opportunities to improve your accent, little by little, with exercises that last only a few minutes (because I know that your free time is not always up to your motivation to boost your English!)
Finally, do not think my goal is to make you talk with an American accent. It’s useless. Your Frenchy accent is so loved by the Americans! My goal is to help you make your pronunciation more natural, more fluid. Keep your accent and instead try to improve your intonation and accentuation. Your accent is just one of hundreds of accents in English as an international language!
I am argentinian. I want talk in english without accent.
Hello Christina,
Thanks for your video “Boost Your Prononciation: How to get the rhythm of English”.
I’m currently preparing an interview to become an ESL teacher and was doing some research on the musicality of the English language
and the reasons why English is a musical language in particular when I fell on your Blog. You have helped me find the beginning of an
answer with “the combination of stress and rhythm”. I’ll now delve more into the subject by doing other researches on your Blog.
Wow, Alice, thanks so much for using my material to prepare your interview!! How did it go?
I want to make my pronunciation better