VIDEO: Calendar (KAL-uhn-der)
3 syllables, word stress on the first syllable KAL

There are two pronunciations that I often hear which aren’t as clear as they could be.
1. Stress on the two first syllables: KAL-EN-der
2. Stress on the second syllable: kuh-LEN-der

We should really try to put all our emphasis on the first syllable KAL. KAL-uhn-der.

Notice how the ‘e’ in the middle almost disappears. Just pretend it isn’t there. Go straight from the L to the N sound. L(uh)N. KAL-uhn-der.

Let’s use this word in a few sentences:
Let me check my calendar.
My calendar is really packed this week!
I finally figured out how to synch the calendars on my computer and phone.

So there you have it! Calendar – in under 60 seconds.

Today I’d like to share with you some really quick and easy ways that you can integrate speech and pronunciation practice into your daily routines.

1) Newspaper Practice
Do you read the newspaper in the morning? Ok, take just 10 more minutes to do an analysis of a short passage — mark the work stress, break the content into chunks, read it out loud to practice flow. Concentrate on sounds that you know are difficult for you. There you go. 10 minutes of practice. Check!

2) Morning Commute
How do you get to work? Do you drive? If you’re one of my clients, you have some pronunciation CDs and listening materials you can stick in your CD player. If you’re on the bus, metro, subway, listen to the mp3s on your phone. Obviously if you’re in a public place you probably won’t want to be doing production practice, but you could get away with it in your car. Either way, you’re at least working on your listening skills. That’s at least 15 more minutes of practice, and it’s really good practice if you’re able to also practice your speaking at that time. Check!

3) Boring Meetings
Now what about when you’re sitting in that incredibly boring meeting at work? Instead of letting your mind wander to all kinds of crazy things, put your speech awareness hat on and make some notes about how the person speaks. If they’re a good speaker, what can you learn from them? If they aren’t so good… what can you learn from them? Listen for pronunciation, timing, flow, use of examples and stories, audience engagement techniques (or lack thereof). Turn your daily experiences into learning experiences. We just got about 30 more minutes of practice in! Not bad!

4) Waiting Times
Now, another opportunity! Think about all the time you spend waiting during the day. Maybe you’re stuck on hold with your bank, or someone is late for a meeting, or you’re waiting in the car for your kids when you’re picking them up at school or another activity… Make small lists of minimal pairs that you can practice in these moments. Write them on small notecards, something like a business card size and have them handy at your desk or in your bag, so you can run through them and practice. You could get as much as 20 minutes of practice per day using this technique!!

10 + 30 (you have to commute both ways!) + 30 + 20 = 1hr, 15min per day!
Then let’s say you schedule just one 15 minute practice session into your day, as I recommend.
You’re working on your speech for an hour and half each day!!

And we haven’t even thought about all the talking you do in a day. Think about if you approached every conversation as an opportunity to practice! It’s just about raising your awareness!

Be creative with your speech practice. Integrate it into your daily routine. Raise your awareness about how you and others speak throughout the day. Always have this in the back of your mind in your conversations with people. You have more than enough time to work on your speech. You CAN do this!!

How do YOU work pronunciation practice into your daily routine? Leave your ideas in the comments section below!

Can’t see this video? Watch it on YouTube.

Can’t see this video? Watch it on YouTube.

Can’t see the video? View it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_s7EZCr02E

Do you fear speaking English?
Do you feel like people don’t really know you when you speak English?
Do you stay quiet because you want to avoid the embarrassment of making mistakes?

You’re not alone.

In this video I’ll share three tips with you to overcome your fear of speaking English. These are the tips that I personally have used to overcome my own fears when I’ve been speaking foreign languages.

I was recently asked why I do what I do. There aren’t a lot of people out there with a passion for English pronunciation! I do this because I know first-hand what it’s like to struggle speaking another language.

I have a Bachelor’s Degree in German, although I haven’t used the language for many years now, and I’m also fluent in Danish. My husband is Danish and I lived in Denmark for 4 years.

I know how hard it can be to speak up in a foreign language. I know how devastating it feels when no one understands. I know how awful it is to feel like no one around you even knows who you are.

That’s why I do what I do – so you don’t have to stuggle, so you can have more confidence, so you can make your mark on this English-dominated world.

I hope these three tips help you to take that chance and speak up with confidence in that next business meeting or when you have to deliver your next English presentation.

Let me know in the comments how you feel when you speak English and how I can help you. You can also join us on Facebook to join the discussion there:
www.facebook.com/hansencommlab

You might have noticed a few new videos popping up on this site! I have officially joined the video revolution, and will be creating TONS of videos for you.

The main reason I’m doing this is because YOU asked for it! I have had so many emails saying “Heather, we love the audio course, but we want to SEE you! It’s great to listen, but we want to watch your mouth move and see you in action!”

So here I am. I hope that these videos will be really helpful for you.

Here’s what you can expect:
Every Tuesday: 60-second Pronunciation Quick Fix
This is where I explain how to clearly pronounce a commonly mispronounced word in under 60 seconds.
Every other Thursday: Sound Practice
We’ll be looking at a different English sound each time and I’ll show you how to produce the sound correctly.
Remaining Thursdays: Either an explanation of a common pronunciation term, or an answer to one of your Frequently Asked Questions

Yep, that’s 2 videos a week! You aren’t going to want to miss a single one, so make sure you subscribe directly to my channel. This will ensure that you catch all the new videos as they go live.

Thanks for watching! I hope you enjoy all the videos! Please leave your feedback, suggestions, or ideas for new videos in the comments!

Happy Speaking!

The ‘th’ sound is tough for just about all non-native speakers, and the final ‘r’ can also cause problems for some. And why is the ‘ea’ pronounced as a short ‘e’ and not a long one like ‘heat’? Yes, I know it’s challenging, but here’s a short video telling you a little bit more about my name, Heather, and how to say it.

I actually forgot to mention the funniest story about my name in the video. My husband and I took a short trip to Surabaya, Indonesia, and the staff at the Shangri-La hotel where we stayed greeted me as Mrs. Her. I didn’t even understand what they said, but when we got to our room I looked more closely at my key card. They had me down as Mrs. Her – Heat Her. LOL!!!

Is your name hard to pronounce? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments!

It’s a frustrating problem for learners because even if you learn how to articulate every English sound correctly, you still won’t necessarily pronounce an entire word correctly on the first try. You need to know which letters make which sounds, and unfortunately in English, certain combinations of letters can make a number of different sounds.

My answer to this question used to be to “look it up”. In other words, go to an online dictionary like dictionary.com and press the little speaker icon to hear the word pronounced. I grew up with my mom saying this to me, and I think this answer bugged my clients as much as it did me as a child. The other problem with this answer was that it was just ‘giving the client a fish’ instead of ‘teaching the client to fish’, as the old saying goes.

Sure, you can look up every new word, but isn’t the goal to be able to identify and read new words correctly without always having to consult a dictionary?

As I put more thought into how my clients could better identify the correct pronunciation of new words, I began to realize the important connection between reading and speaking. We actually need to go back to phonics. Phonics teaches the correlation between our letter system and the sounds each letter (or group of letters) can produce. Phonics programs have become very common in schools as a means to help children learn how to read. It’s this link between reading and speaking that determines whether someone can see a new word and read it with the correct pronunciation on the first try.

It’s because of phonics that I know that a word ending in an ‘e’ will usually have a long vowel sound and the ‘e’ will be silent, as in pole, cape, or cute. By learning common patterns used in English spelling, you can have a better chance of pronouncing a new word correctly. This doesn’t mean you’ll always get it right, but no one does – not even native speakers.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of phonics classes offered for adults, and phonics is taught even less than pronunciation (which is already under-represented) in English language classes. So how can an adult go about learning how to pronounce new words correctly?

Here are a couple ways you can become more aware of English spelling patterns.

1. Listen and read at the same time.

Pronunciation is a skill which is learned by listening. You learn how to say a new word when you hear someone else say it first. Listen to as much English as you can. Even more important than just listening, is learning how to spell the words you hear. If you are watching a DVD, put on the English subtitles so that you can read along as you listen. You are not only learning pronunciation, but you are also learning how different sounds are spelled and are becoming more aware of spelling patterns which you can use later.

If you use an iPhone or other smart phone, see if you can find any apps from magazines that read articles out loud. One of my clients who works in finance downloaded an app from The Economist and listens to the articles being read by professional broadcasters as she reads along.

You can extend this type of practice to audio books as well. If you have the audio version and the print version of a book, read along in the print version as you listen to the audio recording.

2. Focus on phonics.

When you are practicing pronunciation and focusing on a particular sound, be sure to take note of the different ways that sound can be spelled. For example, if you are working on the long ‘e’ sound found in words like beef, cheat, and sheep, make a list of the different ways this sound can be spelled. There are several combinations of letters that make this particular sound:

ee as in free, feet, street, cheek

ea as in beat, cheat, meat, easy

e as in be, these

And less commonly:

i as in police

eo as in people

ei as in ceiling, seize

ie as in piece, chief

ey as in key

You can see from this list that knowing how to pronounce a new word isn’t very easy!

I recently found a great resource developed by Spencer Learning which lists all the different spellings of different sounds. They also have a larger download with word and sentence lists and an entire phonics course you can follow. I’ve started referring to their phonics lists with my clients and they’ve been quite useful.

3. Have a sense of humor

I really believe that humor can lessen any load, and when you are trying to learn a new language or improve in a language you already speak well, you need to be able to laugh at yourself. You need to be able to see the humor inherent in the language itself, and also the humor in how people use and misuse it.

A fantastic poem, written by G. Nolst Trenité pokes fun at the difficulty of learning English pronunciation and the craziness of the English spelling system. Here is just a short excerpt:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain…

You will not get every word right every time. You will still make mistakes. There are plenty of native speakers mispronouncing new (and old) words every single day. Businessmen, politicians, celebrities, newscasters – everyone flops once and a while. But believe me, once a mispronunciation has been brought to your attention, you’ll never make the mistake again!

You can either let mispronunciations bring you down and cause you to lose your self esteem and courage to speak in English, or you can laugh off your mistakes and move on. My advice would be to do the latter.

Have you found other ways to help you pronounce new words? Please share your ideas in the comments!

It wasn’t until I became a teenager that I began to really notice differences in how people speak. I went to the national speech & debate tournament in Minnesota, and it was quite a wake-up call. I couldn’t believe how many kids from other parts of the United States had accents! There were our hosts the Minnesotans, the Texans, the New Yorkers, and my very favorite, that kid from Boston who we made say “coffee talk” over and over again because it just sounded so “cool”.

Who knew there were so many accents in the US?! I guess I was lucky I grew up with the neutral one.

It wasn’t until about five years after my Minnesota experience, while sitting in a tram in Switzerland, that I realized I actually might have an accent. Two young women (around my age at the time – 20 or so) entered the tram and found seats at the back. They spoke loudly and stretched their vowels in a way that was vaguely familiar. I thought, “OMG! Please don’t tell me I sound like that. Those girls are totally from California!”

It took not only leaving my home state, but also leaving my home country before I could even hear that there was a very specific accent in the area where I grew up.

This phenomenon is not unique. Most native speakers believe that their accent is neutral. Unless they come from a region that is stereotypically known to have an accent (like Texas, for example), they will usually say that they speak “normally”. Although, in my experience, even people from Texas have told me they don’t have accents.

The thing is, every accent is relative to the accent of the listener. The listener considers himself “normal” or “neutral” and measures the people he hears to himself. As far as I’m concerned, the “Queen’s English” – what we language lovers refer to as “Received Pronunciation” (RP) or the “gold standard” of pronunciation – is just one big, heavy accent!

KPLU radio in Seattle, Washington recently reported on some interesting research being done on the Pacific Northwest  accent in the US. Linguists are tracking residents’ perceptions regarding the accents spoken in that region. They are finding that many residents can’t hear that they have an accent when their speech is compared to other varieties of American English. In addition, people have very real perceptions about different accents labeling them as “ghetto”, “redneck”, and “slang”, among other derogatory titles.

The truth is, there are 8 different dialects of English in North America alone. They have been documented on this fantastic, interactive map, where you can click on a location to hear real language samples from individuals living there. Another great resource, if you’re interested in listening to British accents, is a new database compiled by the British National Library during their Evolving English Exhibit.

So who has the neutral accent? Which accent should we emulate? If you follow my blog, you already know where I stand. There is no “neutral”, “proper” or “normal” accent…other than mine, of course!

9 years later, I now sit with my 3-year-old daughter reading her books in English while my husband reads to her in Danish. She has her favorite 3 books which get read over and over again to the point that she now has them memorized. She asks to “read” them all by herself, and I’m shocked by how much she sounds like me.

She has absorbed my intonation and stress patterns as she dramatically recites each page. Even if she doesn’t have the pronunciation of each sound just right, the overall flow and rhythm of the language is there. It reminds me just how important it is to read to our children, but also what an important tool children’s books can be in our own language learning.

These stories are filled with color, emotion and imagination. A good speaker knows how to incorporate these elements into their speech through tone, stress, pace and vocal variety.

So how can you apply this to your own pronunciation practice?

Find your favorite children’s story in English. Read it out loud as though you were reading to a small child, or if you happen to have a small child, even better! Think about what the words mean. Use feeling and emotion to bring the story to life. If you find this kind of exercise embarrassing (I totally understand), hide in an empty room in your house when no one’s home and give it a try.

Here are some examples from my daughter’s current favorite book (it might change next week), Sharing a Shell, by Julia Donaldson, who also authored the very popular book, The Gruffalo.

“Look! A storm, a terrible storm. Crashing and flashing all night.”

Bring this sentence to life by emphasizing important content words:

“LOOK! a STORM, a TERRible storm. CRASHing and FLASHing all night.”

The pace and pauses are also important. Pause slightly after “LOOK!”. Lengthen the word, “TERRible,” to give it more emotion. “CRASHing” and “FLASHing” should be quick and sharp, just as real crashes and flashes are.

It’s amazing how much meaning you can give to this sentence just by using your voice and carefully choosing which words to emphasize.

Let’s take another example:

As the crab is searching for a shell, he’s chased by a seagull until…

“At last, in a pool, an empty shell! Quick, Crab! Scuttle inside.”

This sentence only makes sense if you chunk the content into appropriate thought groups:

At last // in a pool // an empty shell // Quick, Crab // Scuttle inside.

Then choose the important words to emphasize:

at LAST // in a POOL // an EMPty shell // QUICK, CRAB // SCUTtle inSIDE!

Notice in this sentence how the function words (at, in, a, an) are unstressed. Their vowel sounds reduce to the schwa sound (close to ‘uh’). They aren’t fully pronounced. For example, “in a pool” is not “in A POOL”, but “inuh POOL.” This lends more focus to the content words and gives the excerpt some rhythm.

Don’t forget the emotion of this excerpt as well. Can you hear the relief in your voice when you say “at LAST”? Can you hear the urgency of “QUICK, CRAB! SCUTTle inSIDE!”?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “This is all great, Heather, but I’m not going to talk like this at work!”

This may be true. As adults we lose our sense of discovery and imagination, and heaven forbid we show too much emotion in the workplace!

But let’s take a look at a real example from one of my clients. He had a very important presentation to the international CEO and was asking for funding (in the millions of US dollars) to expand to a new foreign market. He had fantastic statistics and research to back up his plans. The key was to deliver this information in a way that got attention.

I can’t share the actual details of his content, but here is a made-up sentence along the lines of what he needed to say:

“We’ll focus our efforts on this region which has a population of 280 million – the same as the United States.

Yes, you can dryly read this sentence, and no one will grasp its importance. Instead, bring the numbers to life:

We’ll FOcus our EFforts on THIS REgion, which has a popuLAtion of TWO HUNdred and EIGHty MILLION (lengthened for effect) (nice pause) the same as the enTIRE (lengthened) uNITed STATES.

By using tone and emphasis, along with a nice comparison that puts the numbers in perspective, you direct your audience to the important information that you want them to remember. Rattling off statistics isn’t good enough. You need to guide your listeners to the important points.

By applying these techniques, my client got his funding – on the spot. He was also the only presenter to receive a round of applause. Make an effort to connect yourself, your voice and your delivery to your content, and your audience will feel that connection as well.

Just like reading a story to a child, spark the imaginations of your listeners by breathing life into your messages.