Two Vowel Shifts in Almost All ESL Accents
In addition to sharing useful information about shifts to the [ɪ] and [ʊ] sounds, I use an example word that fills me with regret and joy. I love to be... Read more
AccentHelp Blog
Rhotic vs Non-Rhotic Accents
One major subdivision of accents/dialects is whether they are rhotic or non-rhotic: do they drop their R's or not? When the R's drop after vowels ("hard" = "hahd") this is... Read more
Broad vs Narrow Transcription of R
I had a question from someone about why they see different symbols for the R sound even though people are talking about the same one... The symbol \r\ may be... Read more
Nasalizing Vowels
There are three nasal consonants that are common for English speakers, but often we carry over that nasality into vowels, especially the vowels that occur before a nasal consonant. Jim... Read more
Introduction to Accents 6: Prioritizing Learning Accents
What accent should you learn when it's not immediately demanded by a project? Coach Jim Johnson leads you through a list of which accents and dialects to work on as... Read more
Introduction to Accents 5: Helpful Hints
Often there are little shortcuts or tricks that help you to jumpstart learning an accent. Here, Jim Johnson leads you through a number of possible elements that might help you... Read more
Introduction to Accents 4: Intonation
Intonation is primarily about musicality and rhythm. There tend to be recurring musical phrasings, such as lifts at the ends of phrases, that are built into a number of accents... Read more
R Sounds in Phonetics
There are a number of ways to express the basic R sound in phonetics, which can depend on where it occurs in a word - oftentimes a pre-vowel R is... Read more
