I often hear that if your pronunciation in English is clear, your foreign accent doesn’t matter. Then why do I meet so many people whose English is intelligible and fluent, but they still cringe when someone asks where their accent is from? In this post, I’m gonna talk about having a foreign accent in the […]
Speaking fast doesn’t make you sound fluent
In this post I will discuss one of the biggest mistakes English learners make when they want to sound fluent. This is something that many people do but don’t realize that it makes them sound less clear. When we first start listening to native English speakers, we can’t even understand where one word ends and […]
Can you lose your foreign accent in English?
Can you really sound like a native English speaker if you started speaking English as an adult? There are some courses out there that promise you that in no time, you will be speaking with no foreign accent. But is that really possible? In this post, I’ll be talking about the challenges of gaining a […]
Fear of speaking English and how to deal with it
Confusing English pronunciation: R vs. L
A couple of years ago, I worked closely with one of the pronunciation coaches in a local college. My job was to listen to students and correct the sounds they were confusing. Each week we practiced a different sound so I noticed how people had their own challenges depending on their native language. One day, […]
What to do when others comment on your accent
Confusing English pronunciation: voiceless stops
The other day I was watching an Instagram live of a well-known guy in the marketing field. He was sharing his business strategy and talking about how he pitched to clients. The only thing is, instead of “pitching” he was saying “bitching.” Now, pitching to clients and bitching to clients are two very different things […]
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Do you feel your English is still not good enough?
Confusing English pronunciation: L vs. W
During my last trip to Bulgaria, I had a conversation with a person who was helping me with some paperwork. At one point, answering one of my questions, he told me that I could find more details about the topic we were discussing “on wine.” Although this sounded odd to me, I immediately knew that […]