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Mastering the American Accent

Mastering the American Accent
作者:Lisa Mojsin M.A.
出版社:Barron's Educational Series
出版年:2016-09
ISBN:9781438008103
行业:其它
浏览数:83

内容简介

This combination book and audio instructional program is designed to diminish the accents of men and women who speak English as their second language. It will help them speak standard American English with clarity, confidence, and accuracy. Specific exercises concentrate on vowel sounds, problematic consonants such as V, W, TH, the American R, and the often confusing American T sound. It teaches them to employ correct syllable stress, emphasize the correct words in a sentence for native sounding rhythm, speak with American intonation, link words for smoother speech flow, use common word contractions, and more. Additional topics that often confuse ESL students are also discussed and explained. They include distinguishing between casual and formal speech, homophones (for instance, they're and there), recognizing words with silent letters (comb, receipt, and others), and avoiding embarrassing pronunciation mistakes, such as mixing up "beach" and "bitch." Students are familiarized with many irregular English spelling rules and exceptions, and are shown how such irregularities can contribute to pronunciation errors. A native language guide references problematic accent issues of 13 different language backgrounds. Correct lip and tongue positions for all sounds are discussed in detail. There is also a link to downloadable audio that uses male and female voices to coach correct American-style pronunciation.

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作者简介

Lisa Mojsin teaches accent reduction in Los Angeles. She is director of Accurate English, an accent reduction training company. (accurateenglish.com) She specializes in working with actors in Hollywood, TV announcers, and business professionals for whom correct pronunciation is a must. She is passionate about helping non-native speakers of English communicate confidence, clarity and accuracy.

Her typical non-entertainment industry clients are foreign born physicians, lawyers, software engineers and corporate professionals.

She has a master's degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. She taught at Santa Monica College, West Los Angeles College and UCLA-Extension. She also taught in China, Germany and New Zealand and has worked as an interpreter in France and for the Olympic Games.

She developed a passion for accents and correct pronunciation when she was getting her bachelor's degree in French and German from UCLA.

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目录

Introduction vi

Chapter 1: The Vowel Sounds 1

Production of Vowels 1

Main Vowel Sounds of American English 3

/i/ as in meet 4

/I/ as in sit 4

/eɪ/ as in take 6

/ɛ/ as in get 7

/æ/ as in fat 8

/ɑ/ as in father 9

/ə/ as in fun 10

/ɔ/as in saw 11

/oʊ/ as in boat 13

/ʊ/ as in good 14

/u/ as in too 14

/ər/ as in bird 16

/aɪ/ as in time 16

/aʊ/ as in house 17

/ɔɪ/ as in boy 18

Chapter 2: Vowels in Detail 19

Review of /I/ and /i/ Sounds 19

Review of /ɛ/ and /æ/ Sounds 20

Review of /ə/, /ɑ/, /ɔ/, and /ou/ Sounds 21

The Problematic o 22

Three Different Ways to Pronounce the o 25

Review of /æ/ versus /ə/ 25

The American /ɔ/ Sound 26

Review of /ɛ/, /æ/, /ɑ/, /ɔ/, /ə/, and /oʊ/ 28

The Problematic /ʊ/ Sound 29

Review of /ʊ/ and /u/ Sounds 30

Comparing /u/ and /yu/ 30

Review of the /ər/ Sound 31

Vowels Followed by the /r/ Sound 32

Chapter 3: Consonants 33

Forming American Consonants 33

Voiceless and Voiced Consonants 34

Vowel Length and Voiced and Voiceless Consonants 35

Stops and Continuants 37

Chapter 4: Problematic Consonants 39

The Various t Sounds of American English 39

The “Fast d” Sound 43

The /tʃr/ Sound: tr 44

The /dʒr/ Sound: dr 44

The /dʒ/ Sound: du and d + y 45

The /tʃ/ Sound: tu and t + y 45

Words Ending in -ed 46

The th Sound 49

The American /r/ 53

The American /l/ 56

Understanding /l/ Versus /r/ 58

The /v/ Sound 61

Understanding /b/ Versus /v/ 62

The /w/ Sound 63

Understanding /v/ Versus /w/ 64

The /s/ and /z/ Sounds 65

The /ŋ/ Sound: Pronouncing ng 68

Consonant Clusters 70

Chapter 5: Syllable Stress 73

Stressed and Reduced Vowels 73

Comparing Stressed and Reduced Vowels 76

Dangers of Stressing the Wrong Syllable 78

General Rules for Stress Placement 79

Two-Syllable Words 79

Noun and Verb Pairs 80

Words Ending in -tion and -ate 81

-ate Endings of Verbs and Nouns 81

More Stressed Suffixes 82

Rules for Prefixes 82

Syllable Stress Changes 84

Reduced Vowels for Review 86

Chapter 6: Word Stress 89

Compound Nouns 89

Proper Stress with Adjectives 91

Phrasal Verbs 93

Noun Forms of Phrasal Verbs 94

Abbreviations and Numbers 95

Names of Places and People 96

Word Stress Within a Sentence 96

Lengthening the Main Vowel in Stressed Words 96

Which Words Should I Stress? 98

Content Words 98

Content Words in Detail: Verbs 99

Stress Nouns but Not Pronouns 99

Content Words in Detail: Adjectives 100

Reducing Vowels in Unstressed Words 101

Weak Forms 101

Reducing Pronouns 104

Strong Forms 105

Thought Groups and Focus Words 106

Contrastive Stress 107

Chapter 7: Intonation 109

Falling Intonation 109

Statements 109

Questions 109

Rising Intonation 110

Non-final Intonation 111

Unfinished Thoughts 111

Introductory Words 112

Series of Words 112

Expressing Choices 112

Wavering Intonation 113

Chapter 8: Sound Like a True Native Speaker 115

Linking Words for Smoother Speech Flow 115

Rules for Linking 116

Linking Consonant to Vowel 116

Linking Consonant to Same Consonant 119

Linking Two Consonants 120

Linking Vowel to Vowel 122

Linking Vowels Within a Word 123

Contractions 125

Commonly Contracted Words 126

Conditional Tense and Contractions 130

Casual Versus Formal Speech 132

Rules and Patterns of Casual Speech 133

Chapter 9: Memorizing the Exceptions 135

Same Spelling, Different Pronunciation 136

Two Correct Pronunciations 137

Words with Dropped Syllables 137

Words with Silent Letters 138

Homophones 139

Native Language Guide 141

Chinese 141

Farsi 149

Filipino Languages 152

French 155

German 160

Indian Languages 164

Indonesian 168

Japanese 172

Korean 176

Portuguese 180

Russian 184

Spanish 188

Vietnamese 193

Index 199

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