Accent Reduction

MARIA CHRISTINA B. SEREÑO, Master Teacher 1

Foa egzampuru, eefu you hea ah Jahpahneezu
pahsohn speakingu Ingurishu

A mahn frohm Paree ohn zee ahzer ahnd, eez

intonashon goes up at zee end ov evree sentence

Ay canat anderstan dos sintinsis

Beddy bada bida bedder budder

 ACTIVITY

(Betty bought a bit of better butter.)

 What Is Accent?

Accent is a combination of three

main components:
intonation (speech music),
liaisons (word connections), and
pronunciation (the spoken sounds
of vowels, consonants, and
combinations).
 ACTIVITY
Intonation, or speech music, is the sound that you hear
when a conversation is too far away to be clearly audible
but close enough for you to tell the nationality of the
speakers.
Three Ways to Make Intonation
1. just get louder or raise the volume.
2. streeeeetch the word out or lengthen the word that
you want to draw attention to
3. change pitch.
Accent is free form, intuitive, and
creative— more the spirit of the
language. So, thinking of music,
feeling, and flow, let your mouth
relax into the American accent.
 Less Than It Appears ... More Than It
Appears

 Some words appear to have three or more

syllables, but all of them are not actually spoken.
 For example, business is not (bi/zi/ness), but rather
(biz/ness).

Pool looks like a nice, one-syllable word, but if you

say it this way, at best, it will sound like pull, and at
worst will be unintelligible to your listener.
For clear comprehension, you need to say three
syllables (pu/wuh/luh).
 Liaisons

Slow / men working ahead.

Slow men / working ahead.

 Word Reductions

•Consonants and even syllables may be left

out or joined with neighboring words and two
words may be spoken as one;
•They will only be stressed when the speaker
is emphasizing a specific point.
•By deemphasizing these words in
conversational speech, you achieve a natural,
“fluent-sounding” rhythm appropriate for
American English.
A new accent is an adventure.
Be bold! Exaggerate wildly!
Don’t worry about your accent….
Good luck with your new accent!
Tense Vowels? Lax Vowels?
Voiced Consonants? Unvoiced Consonants?
Can you speak and sound like
an American native speaker
with the American accent?
Try to read these sentences using the correct American
intonation:

1. Go upstairs.
2. I am going to the other room.

3. My name is Ann.
4. It is the end of the bad years.
5. Give it to his owner.
1. Do not speak word by word

2. Connect Words to Form Sound Groups

3. Use Staircase Intonation
 Staircase Intonation

They go up and down staircases.

We start high and end low.
ACTIVITY
 Noun and Pronoun Intonation

1. Bob sees Betty. 1. He sees her.

2. Betty knows Bob. 2. She knows him.
3. Ann and Ed call the kids. 3. They call them.
4. Jan sells some apples. 4. She sells some.
5. Jean sells cars. 5. She sells them.
6. Bill and I fix the bikes. 6. We fix them.
7. Carl hears Bob and me. 7. He hears us.
8. Dogs eat bones. 8. They eat them.
9. The girls have a choice. 9. They have one.
10. The kids like the candy. 10. They like it.
11. The boys need some help. 11. They need something.
12. Ellen should call her sister. 12. She should call someone.
13. The murderer killed the plumber. 13. He killed a man.
14. The tourists went shopping. 14. They bought stuff.
Native speakers make a clear distinction between pretty

Question: How did you like the movie?

Answer:
1. It was pretty good. (She liked it.)
2. It was pretty good. (She didn't like it much.)
Game: Which sentence?
 The Silent “T”
[t] and [n] are so close in the mouth that the [t] can simply disappear.
Reducing Articles
Reducing Articles
ACTIVITY
ACTIVITY
English is tough stuff
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.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
The end
Learning and Innovation Skills
Life and Career Skills
Communication Skills
Info, Media and Technical skills
Key Terms Associated with
REMEMBERING
Recalling
Listing
Mindmapping
Word Processing
Bullet pointing
Highlighting
Bookmarking
Social Networking
Social Bookmarking
Searching or Googling
 CREATING: Possible Activities
• Song (finale notepad, Word Processing, Sound
recorder, Audacity, podcasting, recording narration
in presentations - Photostory 3, Powerpoint,
Impress]
• Media product (DTP, Movie maker, Corel, GIMP,
Paint.net, Tuxpaint, Alice, Flash, Podcasting )
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION