Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Learn to Speak the American Way... :-)

Hey guys, wanna learn the American English...?

Here is a simple way to do so... Download this ebook and learn to speak in the American way, by listening to the tracks bundled with the book.



SPEAK ENGLISH

I hope this helps....



Friday, September 13, 2013

Neutralising your accent - Part II

 Continuation of the last post...

vi. Buy books on tape.
Record yourself reading some sections of the book. Compare the sound of your English with that of the person reading the book on the tape.

vii. Pronounce the ending of each word.
Pay special attention to 'S' and 'ED' endings. This will help you strengthen the mouth muscles that you use when you speak English. And there is a pit in this; sometimes you tend to over pronounce the last syllable. Be careful.

viii. Read aloud in English for 15-20 minutes every day.

Research has shown it takes about three months of daily practice to develop strong mouth muscles for speaking a new language. Try to move your mouth around, like you are chewing a bubble gum. Exercise your articulators.

ix. Record your own voice and listen for pronunciation mistakes.
Many people hate to hear the sound of their voice and avoid listening to themselves speak. However, this is a very important exercise because doing it will help you become conscious of the mistakes you are making. Don’t mind it, ‘coz that how you are heard throughout your life.

x. Be patient.
You can change the way you speak but it won't happen overnight. People often expect instant results and give up too soon. You can change the way you sound if you are willing to put some effort into it. Don’t be harsh on yourself.



 All the Best for Your Success..!!

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Neutralising your accent - Part I



“You have a strong MTI (Mother Tongue Influence). Please work on it and come again ….”
“Sorry, you have to work on pronunciation ….”
“Your English doesn’t sound like English …”
And this is the statement of many MNCs today
These are some phrases which put an end to interviews most often nowadays.  What might be the reason ?
Doesn’t the candidate know English?  
No…That’s not the reason. We KNOW English but we don’t know to SPEAK English.   And its true knowing English is entirely different from knowing to speak English.
Many deserving candidates lose out on job opportunities because of their vernacular accent. What is this vernacular accent ? It’s the influence of your mother tongue on your English, or it’s a state where we unknowingly replace the sounds of English with the sounds of our own language. There are many reasons which contribute to this, like:
  1.       The ignorance of the original English sound.
  2.       The lack of that particular sound in our language
  3.       The position of the articulators and some more…
What is the solution? Can I neutralize my accent?

This is the question in the minds of many of the candidates whose interviews ended with the above said phrases. And the answer is fortunately YES… YOU CAN.. All you need to do is train yourself to speak English as comfortably and perfectly as you speak your mother tongue.
How do you train yourself ?
By inculcating certain practices in your daily lifestyle. These will get you closer to sounding like a native English speaker and equip you with a global accent or a NEUTRAL ACCENT -- and you will NOT speak American or British English, but correct English.
This is the first step to learn any other accent, be it American or British or Australian.
Lisa Mojsin, head trainer, director and founder of the Accurate English Training Company in Los Angeles, offers these tips to help 'neutralise' your accent or rather do away with the local twang, as you speak.

i. Observe the mouth movements of those who speak English well and try to imitate them.
When you are watching television, observe the mouth movements of the speakers. Repeat what they are saying, while imitating the intonation and rhythm of their speech.
ii. Until you learn the correct intonation and rhythm of English, slow your speech down.
If you speak too quickly, and with the wrong intonation and rhythm, native speakers will have a hard time understanding you. 
Don't worry about your listener getting impatient with your slow speech -- it is more important that everything you say be understood.
iii. Listen to the 'music' of English.
Do not use the 'music' of your native language when you speak English. Each language has its own way of 'singing'.  
iv. Use the dictionary.
Try and familiarise yourself with the phonetic symbols of your dictionary. Look up the correct pronunciation of words that are hard for you to say.
v. Make a list of frequently used words that you find difficult to pronounce and ask someone who speaks the language well to pronounce them for you.
Record these words, listen to them and practice saying them. Listen and read at the same time.   

... to be continued


Monday, August 26, 2013

Ones and the twos



          We all know one is singular, and now, what is the plural of one..? Two…? Nope, its ones (and not once) and two as a numeral, is also singular. (if the teacher says “ You have written all the twos wrong…” – what does she mean? :-)

English is a funny language, it makes plurals in many different ways, and sometimes it doesn’t make at all. Singulars act as plurals as well.

Confusing…? Let me  confuse you more…  Read the poem below:-)



OH   MY   GOD......!!!



Is this you,after reading the poem...?


Just chill...Let's check out how to make these plurals.



The first way to make a plural is to add “s” to the noun:


                    Pencil         -  Pencils
                    Door           -  Doors
                    Boy             -  Boys
                    Animal        -  Animals
                    Computer   -  Computers

And for nouns that end in - ch, x, s, or s sounds, add es.

                    Fox            -  Foxes
                    Catch        -  Catches
                    Moss          -  Mosses
                    Kiss            -  Kisses

For nouns ending in f or fe, change f to v and add es.

                    Wolf          -  Wolves
                    Wife          -  Wives
                    Leaf           -  Leaves
                    Life            -  Lives
Some nouns change completely to form plurals.

                    Goose         -  Geese
                    Woman       -  Women
                    Man            -  Men
                    Mouse         -  Mice
                    Child           - Children

Nouns ending in vowels like y or o do not have definite rules.

                    Baby            -  Babies
                    Toy              -  Toys
                    Kidney         -   Kidneys
                    Potato          -  Potatoes
                    Memo           -   Memos
                    Stereo          -   Stereos

And a few nouns have the same form for both singular and plural.

                    Sheep            -   Sheep
                    Deer              -   Deer
                    Series            -   Series
                    Species          -   Species









Friday, August 23, 2013

The Video Mantra



Another way to improve English is to watch English movies. 

Yeah, I know you are crazy about the Chackies, the Bonds, the Tom Cruises, etc., etc. and have watched lots of movies of this kind. But it’s better to watch movies which have more dialogues than action movies.




Movies which have a nice story line, or sitcom comedies where dialogues play a vital role, will help you to improve your command over the language.



Here I will help you with an idea. First, find a movie which comes under the given condition. Watch the movie once. Watch it again…. and again. Watch it at least 5 times. Now break down movies into smaller parts. May be you can break a movie into 6 – 8 parts or roughly 10 mins a part. Watch the first part with the subtitle, till you can understand all the pronunciations. Then try to read the subtitle with the movie. You may not match the original speed and pronunciation .… don’t lose heart

This is how you should imitate the dialogues... :-) 


Repeat this activity till you match the pronunciation. Now try with the next part. You will feel that the second part is much easier than the first one. By the time you finish a movie, you would have improved a lot.


Hope this activity helps.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Some tips to improve your English




Start writing Diary:   One traditional way to make sure you write every day in English is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date way of doing this is to write a blog. (Can also include your activities like brushing, bathing, eating, again eating, and sleeeeeping…etc.,)

Write a news diary:  Another daily writing task that can work for people who would be bored by writing about their own routines in a diary is to write about the news that you read and listen to everyday. (Example:  Important news:  The girl from the next door winked at me several times today morning.. err.. does she have some problems with her eyes..?)

Listen to English music:  Listening to music will help in things like getting used to the tone of English speech, although the more time and attention you give to a song the more you will learn from listening to it again in the future.  ( Songs like Baba Black Sheep and Twinkle Twinkle will be of great use )


Sing karaoke in English:  The next stage after understanding and memorising a song is obviously to sing it. (Please Note:. Instruct everybody near you to take guard, and be ready to run once you start singing ;-))

Label things in your house:   The easiest way to improve your vocabulary is to learn the vocabulary of things you see and use every day. If you can write the names of things around you on slips of paper and stick them on those things.  (You can also lable your friends.. like talkative, bullying, submissive, etc., or even girl, boy…) 


The English Teacher fainted reading this...