Do You Know What’s Making A Difference?

I’m opening a limited number of speech evaluations (online) for the rest of the month of January.

If you have meetings, presentations, teaching, interviews, or high-stakes conversations coming up, this is the best way to get targeted feedback and a clear plan without committing to a full coaching cycle.

I have always offered the evaluation of accented English as: 1) part of the speech coaching package, and 2) as something that can be done without the coaching. I started doing this a long time ago because sometimes people find out so much information from the evaluation that they feel they can start working on their own (even with the help of apps and AI). That’s great!

What It Is

This is an in-depth evaluation of accented English that identifies what is making the most impact on being understood easily. The results reveal the highest-impact changes you can make to reduce listener effort and increase control in your spoken English—especially for professional settings.

What’s Included

• A speech evaluation based on a short sample (recorded during our session)

• Your top priority speech features to focus on (usually: prosody/intonation, word stress/rhythm, pace, and pronunciation patterns)

• A brief review of what you are already doing well (there are always positive points!)

• A simple next-step guide: what to practice and what to listen for

Who It’s Best For

• Multilingual professionals who are already doing many things well, but want more control and consistency

• Anyone who feels “understood most of the time,” but wants to sound more confident and reduce listener effort

• People with a specific upcoming event: a talk, a new role, more leadership visibility, or more speaking time at work

• Many people would just like to satisfy their doubt or curiosity about what is making a difference in their speech and what could be improved.

How it works

The only thing you need to have with you at the meeting is a short paragraph that contains vocabulary that is common to the speaking situation you would like to improve the most. This could be from your research, company website, presentation, etc. Other than that, no preparation is needed. Just have water handy because you’ll be doing a lot of talking.

• We meet on Zoom for a 90-minute meeting to record two main types of speaking: 1) conversation, 2) reading a short paragraph

• I review and analyze everything to create a report and share the results.

• We meet on Zoom again (90-minutes) to review everything so you’ll have a clear understanding of what everything means, sounds like, and how to practice.

Fee and Scheduling

Fee: $500
Payment is due at the time of scheduling online:
To schedule a January opening:

Schedule Online

The reason the number of evaluations is limited is due to the time it takes to meet and the time it takes me to analyze and do an in-depth evaluation. If you don’t find a day or time that you prefer on the online scheduler, please email me and we’ll try to find something that works as best as possible: info@adastraspeech.com

#1 How to Pronounce “chrysanthemum”

“Chrysanthemum” was the most requested word to practice how to pronounce in 2025. It looks like a long word, but it’s only four syllables and no tricky sound combinations: KRIH-san-thuh-muhm. I learned a lot about this type of flower in our conversations in the Pronunciation Meetup group as well as Wikipedia. Since many cultures associate it with funerals, maybe it’s appropriate that it’s from last year and we can finally put last year to rest.

#2 How to Pronounce “entrepreneur”

“Entrepreneur” comes up a lot in the Pronunciation Meetups. Since it comes to English from French, the stress is on the final syllable. That’s unusual for most English words. There are variations of pronunciations that are all correct, but I only listed the two most common ways: ahn-truh-pruh-NER (where “NER” rhymes with “HER”) and ahn-truh-pruh-NU-wer. Since an entrepreneur is someone who is the “organizer of a business venture” (in Merriam-Webster’s definition) and is associated with starting something new, it seems like it’s good timing to start something new, like a new year.

2025 Pronunciation Guide & Video

I organize my pronunciation spreadsheet into columns:

A = How the word is really spelled.

B = How the word could be spelled in regular letters (no IPA symbols) to represent how it sounds. The word is divided into syllables, the stressed syllable is in capital letters.

C = The sound of the vowel in the stressed syllable with a short word to help remember that sound.

D = A group of words, phrase, or sentence with that word in it.

You can download this spreadsheet from Google Drive by opening it, making a copy of it, and saving it to your own computer.

Open Spreadsheet

Listen & Practice

My Meetup Groups are free:

American English Pronunciation Q&A - Tuesdays, 1:00PM US Eastern Time

American English Intonation - Wednesdays, 6:00PM US Eastern Time

If you can’t attend the pronunciation or intonation Meetups, you can always watch the videos I make after each one to hear new words and sentences. Visit the whole channel with the link below or click on the video to go directly to the Top 20 list.

Adastra Speech YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@adastraspeech

I recorded myself pronouncing all these words just like I do after every Meetup:

Venture into 2026

At the start of each new year, I hear or read about people choosing one word that they think or hope will represent that year.

The definition of “entrepreneur” included the word, “venture.” I think “venture” seems like a good way to describe how I feel about entering this new year. I know it may be risky and there will be hazards, but to “venture” out is to be brave and do it anyway. I choose to venture into 2026.

The Big Idea

Research shows prosody often improves comprehensibility so the listener can understand your meaning more easily. This means emphasizing the important words to make them stand out by using higher pitch and stretching the vowel longer in the stressed syllable. Which words you emphasize can change the meaning.

Practice control by focusing on emphasizing just one word at a time in a short sentence.

Notice how the meaning changes as you emphasize different words.

Link to PDF

Which words should I emphasize?

Identifying stress in words is easy—if you don’t know, look it up in the dictionary.

Identifying stress in sentences is different, but not difficult.

There are no definite rules for which words will be stressed in sentences so there’s no place to look for the correct answer.

The good news is there is no correct answer.

Which words you decide to stress (by making the stressed vowel of the stressed word higher in pitch and stretching the vowel longer) depends on your meaning.

However, in general, there are words that are less likely to be stressed. These are “function” words that are important for grammar and add extra information to the content words but don’t carry as much meaning on their own.

Words with low probability of being emphasized (with examples):

1. Articles & determiners (a, an, the, this, those)

2. Prepositions & particles (in, on, at, for, to, of, up, out)

3. Pronouns (I, you, it, we, they)

4. Auxiliary/helping verbs & modals (be, do, have, can, will, would)

5. Conjunctions (and, but, or)

6. Quantifiers (some, any, each)

Words with high probability of being emphasized (with examples):

Although there aren’t many definite rules, there are a few words that will have a higher probability than other words based on their part of speech.

1. Whichever word contains the new information and words that contrast in meaning.

2. Question words (who, what, where, when, why, how, who’s, which)

3. Negative words (can’t, don’t, never, none)

4. Adverbs (really, very, just, always)

5. Adjectives (wonderful, small, blue)

We emphasize the most meaningful words in a sentence.

That’s the answer to the question, “How do I know which words to emphasize?”

Trust yourself.

You know what you want your listener to notice so make it easy for them and impossible to miss by saying those words with higher pitch and stretching the vowel longer in the stressed syllables.

Practice Special Emphasis

Where you place the stress will determine the meaning. The same sentence can be said in many different ways with many different results. This is called “special emphasis.”

In the example below, as the stress moves in a sentence, so does the meaning. What meaning does each sentence have with each different (bold) word emphasized?

Example Sentence: I haven’t seen that movie.

Start by trying to keep a completely flat pitch like a robot, just for practice of control.

Listen

Move the emphasis to change the meaning, starting with the first word, “I".

I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

Video Demonstration

Create Your Own Practice Sentences

You can create your own practice sentences by following the guide for high probability words. You want to reduce the number of low probability words as much as possible, but pronouns are okay to include.

Here are some examples of sentences that don’t include many articles, prepositions, helping verbs, or conjunctions:

1. I haven’t sent my report yet.

2. We could move the meeting.

3. She didn’t ask if you’d help.

4. They supposedly called me.

5. You might go again tomorrow.

6. I thought you already finished.

7. He told me to wait here.

8. We need results today.

9. I only reviewed one section.

10. This isn’t what I requested.

Notice Changes in Meaning

Every word you stress creates a different meaning for the same sentence. Here are some possibilities when I asked ChatGPT to identify the meaning of each one:

1. I haven’t sent my report yet.

• I: Not someone else—I haven’t.

• haven’t: Status is incomplete—negation matters.

• sent: Not drafted/uploaded—sent is the missing step.

• my: It’s my report, not the team’s.

• report: The report (not slides/data) isn’t sent.

• yet: Timing—expect it later.

Create practice sentences specific to your job or field of work/study.

I used ChatGPT to create sentences that were more specific to a field of work. Here is the prompt I used that you can copy and paste.

Make it more personal in the “INPUTS” section:

Adjust the “Field” line to make it more specific to your job or any topic you want.

Adjust “Terms to use” to list specific words that you want to include.

Adjust “Sets” to choose how many different sentences you want.

“Pronouns for contrast?” - just leave it that way so it will emphasize pronouns.

COPY PROMPT ⇩

You are a prosody drill generator. Make short, domain-specific sentence sets where changing which content word is emphasized changes the meaning.

INPUTS

- Field: [e.g., oncology / SRE / finance]

- Terms to use: [10–20 nouns/verbs/adjectives]

- Sets: [e.g., 8–10]

- Pronouns for contrast? [yes/no]

RULES

- Emphasize only content words. Do NOT emphasize articles, conjunctions, prepositions, or helping/aux verbs. If pronouns=yes, use sparingly for contrast.

- Keep sentences natural to the field, ~6–9 words, specific.

- For each base sentence, list 3–5 emphasis options (content words only) and give a one-line meaning gloss for each (what contrast it signals).

OUTPUT FORMAT (exact)

Base: <sentence>

Emphasis: *word1* / *word2* / *word3* [/ *word4*]

Meanings:

- *word1*: <concise contrast>.

- *word2*: <concise contrast>.

- *word3*: <concise contrast>.

[Repeat for all sets]

My Wish for AI

It would be really helpful for you to hear the example sentences spoken the way they are marked for emphasis. Right now, the worlds of AI text and AI voice are still so far apart. I can have text spoken by AI and have some control over the voice features but there’s not an easy way to control which words are emphasized. I wish I could! That’s my wish for the next step in AI.

Get Feedback

Objective feedback - You can check to see your change in pitch on some of these tools for visualization of changes in pitch.

Subjective feedback - Ask a friend to tell you which word they heard you emphasize the most. Share the numbered sentences with them so they can choose which sentence sounds like the one you were trying to emphasize.

Mix the order of the sentences up when you say them, even do some more than once, so they don’t go in order. Ask your friend to tell you if they heard you emphasize more than one word because the goal is to control your voice to only emphasize the bold word and no other words.

1. I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

2. I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

3. I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

4. I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

5. I haven’t seen that movie. Listen

All this information plus a longer prompt and screenshots of the WASP screen that shows the visualization of change in pitch (Hz) is on the PDF in the link below.

Link to PDF

I get asked this question a lot, “How do you know when the “s” at the end of a word is pronounced as an /s/ or a /z/?”

I also help a lot of people stop adding extra syllables to past tense verbs when they shouldn’t be there.

The information I reorganized from my teaching material includes a lot of tables with examples that are difficult to show on Substack. I’m going to type the big ideas and rules here and link to the document so you can download it and use it as a reference.

Link to PDF with all text and tables

I created a practice spreadsheet where you have to choose what the final sound will be for the “-ed” and “-s” endings. It’s a Google sheet so you can download it and save it.

Link to practice spreadsheet

Link to video of spreadsheet

English can look very different than it sounds.

The sound at the end of the base word determines how the suffix is pronounced.

Past tense “-ed” can sound like /t/, /d/, or /əd/.

Plural/possessive/3rd-person “-s” can sound like /s/, /z/, or /əz/.

Rules help answer questions about what is happening and why. Noticing the patterns of when it’s happening will make this easier to sustain in your speech for the long term.

Use these three rules to practice.

Start noticing these patterns.

1. When your voice is off, leave it off.

   → voiceless endings make voiceless suffixes (/t/ or /s/)

2. When your voice is on, leave it on.

   → voiced endings make voiced suffixes (/d/ or /z/)

3. Made in the same place, make some space.

   → If a word ends in the same place (tongue position) as the suffix, add an extra syllable. Schwa /əd/ or short-i /ɪd/ are both acceptable.

   • “-ed” after /t/ or /d/ = /əd/

   • -s after /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/ = /əz/

I also call this my “cats” and “dogs” rule for the “-s” endings:

When your voice is off, leave it off.

→ “cat” (ends in voiceless /t/) + s = “cats” = looks like an “s” and sounds like an “s”

When your voice is on, leave it on.

→ “dog” (ends in voiced /g/) + s = “dogs” - looks like an “s” but sounds like a “z”

Link to PDF with all text and tables

Final Stop Consonant Sounds - When They’re Silent

The stop consonants are: /p, b, t, d, g, k/

• When a word ends with a stop consonant sound, the air won’t be released so you won’t hear the final sound unless there’s a word following it that begins with a vowel.

If “work” is at the end of a sentence, before a pause, or before a word that begins with a consonant, the tongue (or lips) goes to that position but just holds in the airflow.

“I have to go to work.” - You won’t hear a /k/ sound because it’s at the end of a sentence.

vs

“I have to work on my car.” - You will hear the /k/ sound because the airflow is released as you start making the vowel after it, “on.”

vs

“I have work to do.” - You won’t hear a /k/ sound because it’s followed by a consonant /t/.

Keep that in mind when reading the following examples aloud.

Read-Aloud Practice (Short Sentences)

• I locked our lab and walked out.

• She stayed up late and filed all the reports.

• They waited outside and chatted.

• The dog plays all day with others.

• He verifies our data; she matches our records.

• We boxed up the samples and shipped everything.

• The code compiled and deployed as expected.

• This process stabilizes results during tests.

Link to PDF with all text and tables

I created a practice spreadsheet where you have to choose what the final sound will be for the “-ed” and “-s” endings. It’s a Google sheet so you can download it and save it.

Link to practice spreadsheet

Make Practice Specifically For You

You know I use ChatGPT a lot and am always looking for ways I can help people practice speaking skills. Today, I want to share how I’ve been using it to create speech practice prompts for any profession or situation that include specific sounds for focused pronunciation practice. I also created a reference sheet so you don’t have to know the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). You’ll use words and examples from your real life to make your practice more relevant, realistic, and useful.

What’s a “Prompt”?

A “prompt” is the instruction you enter into ChatGPT or any AI to get the result you’re looking for.

In this prompt, I’m asking for sentences, but you can also ask for a “dialog” (or “conversation” or “role-play”) and it will create a conversation if you give it instructions for who is speaking. It’s helpful to create different speaking situations, such as “create a dialogs for a biologist talking with a colleague, the CEO of the company, and a client who isn’t in the same field.”

General Prompt to Generate Sentences

If you’re not interested in asking for specific sounds to practice, you can use the general prompt. Copy this and insert your specific job title, speaking situation, and words you usually use in that situation.

"Give me 10 natural-sounding sentences that a [job title] might say in this situation [give specific example such as - “speaking to a patient who has heart disease”].
Use these words if possible: [insert your words here].
Make the sentences sound real, short, and relevant to my job."

Prompt That Includes Specific Sounds

Step 1: Choose the Sounds You Want to Practice

ChatGPT (and I’m sure the other AI options) hasn’t been so good at recognizing the IPA symbols for sounds. The reason we have the IPA, the “International Phonetic Alphabet” is to create a one-to-one relationship for spelling and sound.

English has so many different pronunciation possibilities for the letters we use. There are 6 vowel letters: a, e, i, o, u, y but 15 vowel sounds.

In my experience, even consonant sounds have been confusing for AI. When I ask it for words containing the /s/ sound, it doesn’t include words where the letter “c” sounds like /s/, as in “city,” and it includes words where the letter “s” doesn’t sound like /s/ but like /z/, as in “dogs.”

ChatGPT is getting better at using IPA symbols but still needs some examples. That’s why I made this spreadsheet with the IPA symbols and example words. Copy the Google sheet or download it. I left space for you to add your own words that will help you remember sounds in initial, middle, and final positions of words.

Examples:

• The 'th' sound /θ/ as in “think”

• The 'l' sound /l/ as in “full”

• The vowel sound /æ/ as in “cat”

• The 'r' sound /r/ as in “red”

You can stop there and try that level of instruction or you can consider what position in the word you’d like to practice specific sounds in. Pronouncing sounds at the beginning of words is usually easier than in the middle or at the end, so be specific about what position you want to practice that sound in.

Example:

• The 'th' sound /θ/ in initial position, as in “think”

• The 'l' sound /l/ in final position, like at the end of “full”

• The vowel sound /æ/ in middle position, as in “cat”

• The 'r' sound /r/ after a consonant, like in “break” or “drive”

Step 2: Choose a Real-Life Context

What kind of situation are you practicing for?

• Nurse in the ER

• Weekly status report in the lab

• Meeting with your child’s teacher

• Interview for a job in _____

• Meeting a friend for lunch

Step 3: Make a Short Vocabulary List

If you are already aware of words that you’d like to practice, you can list some you actually use in that situation. These should be words you want to pronounce more clearly, confidently, or correctly. You can also give some example sentences that you know you use.

Step 4: Use This Prompt Template

Copy and paste this into ChatGPT and add your specific job title, situation, sounds you want to practice, and words you usually use:

"Give me 10 natural-sounding sentences that a [job title] might say in this situation [give specific example such as - “speaking to a patient who has heart disease”]. I want to practice these sounds:

- The 'th' sound /θ/ in initial position, as in “think”
- The 'r' sound /r/ in final position, like “car”
- The vowel sound /æ/ in middle position, as in “cat”

Use these words if possible: [insert your words here].
Make the sentences sound real, short, and relevant to my job."

Video Demonstration

Then What? Practice

• Highlight or bold the sounds you want to focus on in each sentence so they stand out when you read it out loud.

• Say the sentences out loud and record yourself. Listen to the recording.

• Say the same sentence in different emotions.

• Turn sentences into questions (WH-questions go down in pitch from beginning to end, yes/no questions go up in pitch from beginning to end).

• Use the same prompt again with different vocabulary or speaking situations.

• Cut and paste words or short phrases into Youglish to see if there are videos of other people using them in videos: https://youglish.com/ Remember to slow down the speed to hear the details of pronunciation of specific sounds.

• Cut and paste the sentences it creates into a text-to-speech tool such as:

  • https://elevenlabs.io/

  • https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/

  • https://turboscribe.ai/

  • Google docs can read your text to you with Gemini. If you don’t see it on your toolbar, go to Tools → Audio → Listen to this tab

    The AI voices may not be the best examples of intonation, but the pronunciation is more reliable.

Example Words & IPA Symbols

Download the spreadsheet with the IPA symbols and example words. Copy the Google sheet or download it. I left space for you to add your own words that will help you remember sounds in initial, middle, and final positions of words.

If you have a prompt that you have found useful, please let me know!

Your ideas could shape my next project

Since my recent book release, which focused on the why behind my method of accent modification, I’ve been busy creating the how to do it side of things. These include: detailed speech feature descriptions, examples that need audio/video, and practice exercises. I also want to offer some ways to give feedback to people on their speech as they practice.

Before I got too deep into creating what I thought you’d find helpful, I made a quick 5-question poll to see which formats you’d actually want—things like:

• Consistent practice prompts

• Audio/video lessons

• Options for getting feedback on your speech

• Courses or self-study resources

• …and anything else you think would help

It’s short (two minutes max) and your answers will help me decide what to create next.

Take me to the poll

Expanding Options

The timing of this is taking place at a time where international students, employees, and employers are having a hard time predicting what the very near future will be like, even just month to month. It’s getting more and more difficult to know if jobs will be offered, continued, or discontinued. Research funding and grants have never been more unpredictable. All budgets are being carefully reviewed from the biggest to smallest companies.

I will always offer my one-to-one speech coaching, but I know not everyone has the ability to commit to a minimum of three months working together. What else can I offer to help people work more independently and also provide consistency in small steps that I know builds towards longer term progress? That’s what I’ve put in the poll - options for ways to learn and practice.

Share Your Opinions

I’d really appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to choose some options on this poll and to offer ones I haven’t even thought of.

Take me to the poll

Thank you!

Now that the time has come to release the first part of what I started writing back in March 2022, it’s not just relief and excitement that I feel, there’s a lot of apprehension as well. It’s been in my head, out of my head and onto docs on a computer screen, and now I can hold a paperback copy in my hands. Letting other eyes finally see it is kind of scary. I read a good post on LinkedIn a while back about thinking of putting something you create out in the world as sharing it to help other people. What good does it do anyone else if I keep it all in my head? So here I go. I’m nervous and exhausted but hope this will be a good step to get past.

I can’t believe my last newsletter was in February and I had a proof copy to hold in my hands and proofread. I thought it would be easy-peasy and a quick step towards sharing it. Nope. Lots of details for the paperback but even more for the ebook form, a change of websites, and finally available for international distribution, and here I am three months later.

It’s on my website in book form and ebook form, but available everywhere else just in ebook form for a while.

Adastra Speech Website - Book is Here!

The What, Who, and Why

May 2025 marked 10 years since I left teaching at a university to do exactly what I wanted and work with exactly the people who wanted to learn what I wanted to teach. Since then, I’ve learned an incredible amount about how to best adapt what works in an academic setting to one-to-one instruction/coaching.

This book is about the WHAT - What is an accent and what’s the best way to make changes?

The WHO - Who chooses to pursue improving their accented speech?

The WHY - The answers to the questions students and teachers have asked me about why we’re doing things in a certain way and about the rationale behind it.

The How

What’s next is the big part of the iceberg that this book is just the visible tip of - the how to do it. I wrote and wrote and wrote detailed answers and examples to every single question students have asked me about why American English sounds the way it does. I basically wrote a phonetics book specifically for speakers of English as a second language and teachers.

I believe it would be best to have audio with those examples so I’m working on adding audio to the text and put it in an easy format to view, listen, and download. I won’t wait until it’s all done before I share it. I’ll share it as soon as I have pieces available.

The Contents

A lot of my life events and cycles of change happen in 5’s. I regret that I didn’t make this book 10 chapters, released in my 10th year of business, but I’ll secretly think of the “Resources” as chapter 10. Here’s what’s inside the book:

Introduction

Chapter 1: Why do People Choose Accent Modification?

Chapter 2: What is Speech?

Chapter 3: The Difference Between Accents, Dialects, and Accent Modification

Chapter 4: Speech is Identity

Chapter 5: The Role of Memory in Speech

Chapter 6: The Evolution of Speech (Awareness, Control, Analysis)

Chapter 7: Tracking Progress

Chapter 8: Facilitating the Mental Processing of Language

Chapter 9: The Speech Habit

A Final Word

Resources: 1) Examples, 2) Using the EARR Method

References

Let it Go

Yes, I wasted even more time in writing this newsletter by making an AI graphic that shows the book going out into the world. Some of you have heard about me talk about this book from the early writing days and celebrated milestones along the way. Thank you for all your encouragement and support! This is a happy day to share with you! Use the code NEWS50 to get 50% off.

The Book is HERE!

It’s All Coming Together

I received the paperback proof copy of my book on January 22, 2025. That’s a pic of me the day I got it. I was, and still am, so happy to hold something physical in my hands instead of seeing the words I’ve seen on a computer screen scroll by for the past four years.

Today, I made the last changes and sent them to the publisher! I’m sure I’ll notice many things I’d like to change after this point, but I feel really good that I made some small changes this late in the process. I like that this is happening on Valentine’s Day.

You can’t read the subtitle on the book in that pic because it’s so small, but it was one that I asked for your help choosing. The full title is: “Thinking About Speaking: The Adastra Approach to Mastering the American English Accent.”

The cover is the one most voted for with just a small change to the title format. I’m really happy with it!

It’s been great to be able to share so many milestones on this book writing journey with you. It was last February when I first sent the first 10 chapters of my book to the publisher for editing. I wasn’t very fast to review and work on the edits when they were returned to me multiple times, but I never had a deadline in mind so this got stretched out over a year’s time. I also had to put a renewed focus on my business last year so priorities kept changing. That makes it all the more exciting to be at this point one year later.

Besides setting up a way to buy the book on my website, I’m also working on putting the majority of the book (what’s not in the printed version) in a format that can be downloaded. That will be all the actual descriptions and examples of sound changes in pronunciation. I’d like to add audio to it, so that will slow down the process, but I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you all for your encouragement all along the way!

Diversity and Complexity

This is the first time since I’ve been compiling the most frequently requested words from my American English Pronunciation Q&A Meetup group that there haven’t been 20 obvious choices. There were more diverse words requested this year and they were more complex words than in previous years. I took the top 10 because after that, there were 152 words that were requested twice.

2021

In 2021, the most requested words were not surprising to me at all. I think “world” is a difficult sound combination to pronounce and it looks so much different than it sounds. I think “literally” is a common request because it is heard so often. Since it was 2021, “vaccine” reflects what was going on in the world at that time.

2022

In 2022, the usual suspects, “world” and “literally” are there. The word I either get asked the most often about how to pronounce, or the one I correct someone who doesn’t notice they are pronouncing it incorrectly, is “comfortable” so I expect to see it on the list.

2023

In 2023, there were a lot of words that are pronounced differently than they are spelled. For example, the word, “interesting” has three main pronunciation options and there are silent letters in “subtle” and “clothes.”

2024

Here we are at a look back at the most frequently requested words in 2024. It’s not as clearly defined as in the previous years. There were fewer words that were requested repeatedly. “World” and “squirrel” didn’t even make it! “Literally” made the list though and I have it on there twice to show the two main pronunciations, one more common for US English and one more common for UK English.

I can still see the theme of words that are pronounced differently than they look/how they are spelled. It would be much easier to guess the pronunciation of “drawer” if it were spelled the way it sounds, “dror.” There are hidden sounds such as a “ch” sound in “mutual,” “j” in “individual,” and “zh” sounds in “luxurious” and “visual.”

Here’s what it looks like and you can copy the Google sheet.

Listen

I recorded myself pronouncing all these words just like I do after every Meetup. If you can’t attend the pronunciation or intonation Meetups, you can always watch the videos I make after each one to hear new words and sentences. Visit the whole channel with the link below or click on the video to go directly to the Top 10 list.

Adastra Speech YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@adastraspeech

Meetup sent me a notice to let me know it’s the 5th year of my Meetup group online. I’m grateful for all the wonderful people who have participated and kept it going this whole time. I learn a lot from the questions people ask about pronunciation and intonation. It reminds me to keep being curious and to keep learning new things! Thank you!

To The Stars!

I usually post four videos a week on my Youtube channel, a long version and a short version of each Meetup group’s words and phrases we practiced. Since I’ve been on vacation last week and this week, I thought it would be good to add a video. I decided to keep it similar, I’m reading what’s on the screen and hoping to be an example of a good speaker. The topic is why I named by business “Adastra Speech” and the mission and values I aim for.

I forgot to mention in this video that “ad astra per aspera” is the state motto of Kansas. :-)

Here’s the link to watch on YouTube

or click below:

The text I’m reading is on this webpage and also below:

About Adastra Speech

​Where does the name come from?
​
The Latin phrase, "ad astra per aspera" means "to the stars through difficulties."
It is inspirational to me personally and professionally. I have worked with so many wonderful people who have inspired me by their motivation and dedication to overcome challenges in their lives, especially learning and speaking English as a second language, to achieve their goals and reach success.

If you have the goal, the motivation, and the dedication to make change in your life, you will achieve great results. My goals for you are increased confidence and skill in spoken English that will help you reach that next level.

Did you know that in Latin, the phrase can also be written in a different order as "per aspera ad astra" and it keeps the same meaning, "through hardships to the stars"

Mission
The mission of Adastra Speech is to improve the quality of life through quality speaking skills. I help people reach higher levels of spoken English, bridging the gap between their current and their ideal levels of spoken English, and transforming lives one speech act at a time.

Goals:

• Empower clients to achieve higher levels of spoken English than they thought possible.

• Include the whole person emotionally and psychologically.

• Work with those who value communication and lifelong learning.

Values

• Equality: Every voice deserves to be heard.

• Learning: Lifelong learning is essential.

• Dedication: Continuous improvement is key.

• Control: Clients should have control over how their speech represents them.

• Optimism: Everyone can make progress.

• Individuality: Unique personal expression is important.

• Courage: Trying new speech changes takes courage.

• Respect: Respecting clients' goals and bravery.

• Trust: Trust is essential in the client-coach relationship.

• Confidentiality: Respecting comfort levels with sharing speech work.

Coming Soon:

Top 20 Most Requested Words to Pronounce in 2024

This takes me some time to compile, but I’m always curious to find out what they were. I have no doubt “world” will be on there but I think “squirrel” has slipped in the rankings!

Asking for a quick favor.

Cast a vote for the cover you like best for my book. It’s getting closer to the finish line! I’m only keeping the poll open until December 19, 2024.

Cover 1

Cover 2

Cover 3

Thank you!

It has taken me many weeks to send a new newsletter due to very good reasons - I have been busy with the last stages of editing and proofreading my book and welcoming new clients for speech coaching. My year is ending on a high note, I hope yours is, too.

Everything is coming together. I have been revising the format of my private instruction in accent modification so it more closely matches the rationale that I describe in my book. The overall goal is to reduce cognitive load by making it easier for people to practice more frequently without more quantity of work at one time.

Speech Cycles

The name of the book will be, “Thinking About Speaking: The Adastra Approach to Mastering the American Accent.” A big thank you goes out to all of you who voted in that newsletter asking for your input! The approach I describe in the book is a “cycles” method which applies small, consistent actions over time. Changing speech is a skill that takes time but like learning any new skill or concept, breaking it down into smaller parts makes it less intimidating and more manageable.

I’ve divided a year into three-month cycles to create a structured approach that allows skills to be introduced gradually and integrated with each other and into daily speech. Committing to a year-long program might seem like a big step, but I’ve designed it to not feel too overwhelming or too time consuming in daily life.

Cycle Structure

The lessons in each cycle build upon the previous ones, increase in detail, and integrate the speech features. We begin with structured practice (reading) and slowly progress to unstructured (conversation).

The purpose of cycling through information is to gradually add more to remember so you have time to gain control of some speech features before having to balance all of them at one time.

Basically, you need time to remember how to say something before too much pressure is on thinking of what to say.

Cycle 1 - Essentials - Jump into what is most applicable to your speaking situations.

Cycle 2 - Advanced Control - Add more speech features and gain control of your voice.

Cycle 3 - Mastery and Analysis - Analyze your own ability to make changes to your speech.

Cycle 4 - Continued Support - Meet with me as needed for practice and maintenance.

Monthly Format

This program is structured in 3-month cycles. Each cycle includes:

• Speech Evaluations - A comprehensive evaluation before the start of the program and at the end, with monthly shorter evaluations to assess progress.

• 1 Lesson per month - A new speech feature is focused on for practice and control.

• 3 Individual Practice Sessions each month - Gain more control and awareness.

• Weekly Practice Recordings - I provide feedback videos for each recording.

• Daily Mini-Practice Prompts - Emails with specific sounds and words to practice.

Moving Forward

This cycles approach asks for a longer time commitment from each client I work with and it requires more time commitment from me as well. This means I’ll only be able to handle a limited amount of clients at a time, and I’m looking forward to it. The long game has its rewards of being a part of someone’s small gains on a weekly and monthly basis.

Specific Practice

There will always be situations where I can help people with their English speaking skills for a speaking event they need to prepare for in the short-term. I’ll keep time aside for that because it’s so cool to see how a presentation or interview preparation improves in such a short time and how much more confident a speaker feels as a result of our work together.

Meetup Groups & YouTube Videos

I’ll keep doing my Meetup groups for pronunciation practice and intonation practice and posting a video after each one on my YouTube channel. I think it’s amazing that more people are finding and watching my videos even if they can’t attend the Meetup because there are people from all over the world making comments on them. I now have 4,000 subscribers and since I originally thought nobody would watch those videos if they didn’t come to the Meetup, I’m happily surprised that more people find them useful than I expected.

Thankful

Thank you to all clients past, present, and future. It takes courage to take the first step to contact me when you decide to start making changes to something as personal as your speech. It also takes a leap of faith that I am the person you choose to help you make those changes. I learn something new from every person I work with and it’s always a reminder that curiosity and perseverance are essential for progress.

Thank you to all my Meetup members who have met almost every single week for the past few years. They have truly demonstrated commitment to the long game and it’s been wonderful to hear their progress over time. They ask very insightful questions, are supportive and encouraging to each other (and to me!), and are always the bright spot in my day.

Thank you to family, friends, colleagues, clients, students, readers, and watchers! The work I do is mostly solitary and I appreciate every comment and word of support and for listening. I am grateful to have so many people to share my highs and lows with.

H Deletion & TH Deletion

Speakers will use minimal effort to obtain maximum results. The addition and omission of sounds is caused by the continuous movement from one sound to the next. If you are producing the sounds correctly, these extra sounds will happen accidentally without you having to try to make them. However, when learning what is making a difference between the sound of a native speaker and your accented English, making these movements consciously is a good way to imitate the movements until they become more automatic.  

These changes happen both within words and between words because we don’t speak in individual sounds, we speak in syllables. There are no sound boundaries for individual sounds, all sounds are produced with movement from one to the next and in combination. You may not notice when this is happening, but it is very noticeable when it’s not happening because it creates a “choppy” rhythm and sounds “too correct.” 

Omitting Sounds is “Elision”

Many sounds that you see in spelling are not heard when spoken.

Pronouns that begin with “h” (that aren’t at the beginning of a sentence or being emphasized for their important meaning in a sentence) can drop the /h/ and the consonant sound before it can connect to the vowel of the h-word.

Pronouns that begin with “H”: he, his, him, himself, her, herself

Pronouns that begin with “TH” that can be connected: them, themselves

Linking - Consonant to Vowel

When a word ends in a consonant and the following word begins with a vowel it will sound connected by “linking” them together. For example, we can connect the words “did it” by not taking a pause between the words and it will sound like “dih dit.” The same thing happens with pronouns that begin with “h” and “th” when we delete them and connect words together.

Air Released - On Following Vowel

To get to the vowel, the “h” and “th” are dropped from the words and the consonant before it can connect to the vowel.

“tell him” = tell him = tell im = tel-im

“tell them” = tell them = tell em = tel-em

If these sound the same to you and you’re wondering how to tell them apart, you’re right, they do sound very similar. In fact, in my dialect I pronounce them exactly the same, both are “im” /ɪm/. Context is what will let you know if the singular “him” or plural “them” was intended. 

“I saw Jason yesterday.” - “Tell ‘im I said hi.”

“I saw Jason and David yesterday.” - “Tell ‘em I said hi.”

Linking - Vowel to Vowel

When the “h” is dropped from the word and the vowel is open, it can be linked to a word before it that ends in a vowel. This will create an intrusive sound, a sound that doesn’t look like it’s there but is created by the movement of your lips, tongue, jaw, etc.

These extra sounds will happen naturally if you are pronouncing sounds correctly that need rounded lips and the tongue in the high-front position for the vowel /i/ (“he”). It’s good to practice them on purpose to increase your awareness of what is happening that creates a connected and fluent sound, but it’s not necessary to always try to do it on purpose.

Linking to Rounded Vowels - Creates “w”

If the ending of the first word is a vowel that uses rounded lips, as the lips unround for the following vowel, a /w/ sound is created. Vowels that use rounded lips: /u/ (“who”), /ə͜ʊ/ (“home”), or /a͜ʊ/ (“how”).

“to her” = to_er = to wer

“so he” = so_e = so we 

“how his” = how_is = how wis

Linking to High Vowels - /i/ - Creates “y”

If the ending of the first word is the vowel /i/ (“he”), the tongue is in a very high position. Since /i/ is the highest position for any vowel, the tongue will lower for the following vowel and a “y” /j/ sound is created. 

“see him” = see_im = see yim

“by herself” = by_erself = by yerself

“be himself” = be_imself = be yimself

Difficult to Notice

These connections go by very quickly in speech so they are difficult to notice as you’re listening in a conversation. Here are some ways to make them easier to hear:

• Try focusing on these tiny connections when you’re not participating in the conversation, just listen to other people speaking to each other.

• Slow down the speed when watching a video on YouTube or Ted.com.

• Use Youglish.com to enter some of these words next to each other (e.g. “to him”) and slow down the speed as you listen to the videos that it finds for you with these examples (choose US English before you search).

Not Happening 100% of the Time

What you’ll notice when you start listening for these connections is that they don’t happen all the time. Especially when going through videos it chooses for you on Youglish, notice when the speakers are being more careful with their speech in a formal presentation or a narration of a video.

Also, the “h” and “th” won’t be deleted when the word is at the beginning of a sentence or is being emphasized within the sentence.

Hopefully, the more you hear examples of other people making these connections to make the transitions between words easier to do even if it changes the sound of the words, the more confident you’ll feel to try it and use it. It will make your speech sound more fluent, casual, and have a less “choppy” rhythm overall.

Creating English Speaking Opportunities Wherever You Can

I don’t know why I titled this “Back to the Lab” since people can work in labs in many different professions all year long. I guess with the summer coming to an end and football season starting, I’m still thinking of this month as “back to school” and there are a lot of people who may be starting classes, research, or positions in labs lately.

I work with many people in STEM fields who tell me they don’t have many opportunities to practice their English speaking skills because everyone in their work environment also speaks a language other than English as their first language. That’s a great place to practice! The same skills you need to be easily understood by native English speakers are used in a slightly exaggerated way when speaking to other non-native speakers.

Control These Speech Features

Use your environment as your English Practice Lab.

Consciously control these speech features in your own speech and listen for them in other people’s speech. Notice differences in these features between who you find easy to understand and who you find more difficult to understand.

Pace - Slow down, but don’t speak in slow motion. Slow down your pace by stretching the vowels longer in the stressed syllables of words. Take pauses between groups of ideas (think in terms of thought groups instead of complete sentences).

Volume - Do not use too much extra volume when emphasizing important words, use higher pitch instead. Extra volume can be associated with being angry or annoyed.

Intonation - Make the important words stand out in a sentence by pronouncing them with higher pitch and stretching the stressed vowel longer. Go down in pitch at the end of your complete idea so the listener knows you are finished and it is their turn.

Word Stress - If American English is your goal, use an American English dictionary to check the pronunciation and which syllable is stressed in a word. I use Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com.

Experiment! Here are some practical ways to create speaking opportunities:

1. Leave Voicemails

Instead of sending an email, try calling someone. Leave voicemail messages whenever you can, even as the voice option in a text.

Start small: ask a question or check in with a colleague by voice instead of writing a message.

2. Speak Up in Meetings

Don’t just observe during meetings, conference calls, or webinars. Ask a question or make a short comment, even if it’s just to show you agree with someone.

This will help you get used to hearing your own voice in professional situations.

3. Join (or Create) a Presentation Practice Group

Ask colleagues about how they prepare for presentations. You can discuss what works for them and practice presenting in front of others.

It’s helpful to practice in the same room or environment that you will be presenting in.

4. Attend Social Work Events

Whether it’s a birthday celebration in the break room or a casual team lunch, these are great opportunities to practice conversational English in a relaxed setting.

The informal speech you hear and use in these moments is essential for becoming fluent.

5. Explore Events Outside of Work

Check out Eventbrite or Meetup.com for professional or social events (either online or in person). Set yourself a small goal: introduce yourself to one person and explain what you do. It’s a simple but effective way to test how easily strangers understand you.

Join My Meetup Groups!

I host weekly Meetup sessions designed to help non-native speakers with their pronunciation and intonation in American English. Feel free to join us live:

American English Pronunciation Q&A - Meets on Zoom on Tuesdays at 1:00pm US Eastern time for one hour.

American English Intonation - Meets on Zoom on Wednesdays at 6:00pm US Eastern time for one hour.

If you can’t make it to practice with us live, you can always watch the videos that I post on my YouTube channel of me pronouncing the words or sentences we practiced together.

Prepare & Practice

Before your next speaking opportunity:

Prepare notes on what you want to say (just bullet points, not full sentences).

Practice difficult vocabulary, focusing on sounds that are tricky for you and stressed syllables.

Record yourself speaking, listen back to notice any mistakes, and re-record.Try recording your side of a phone call so you can go back and listen to yourself when you’re not busy having the conversation.

Small Steps Add Up to Big Results

Remember, every small speaking opportunity is progress toward improving your skill and fluency in English. Practicing in an environment that you are familiar and comfortable with is the best place to start. You are conducting secret experiments every time you speak with someone, nobody has to know what you are trying to consciously control with your voice so nobody will know if you felt successful or not.

Keep data on yourself. Use your analytical skills to document what you tried, the results, and what the next trial will be. Learn from other people by listening to them speaking and notice successful (understanding) and unsuccessful (misunderstanding) moments.

Most importantly - Experiment!

Prosody is the Music of a Language

“Prosody” can be broken down into its parts: intonation (the change in pitch across the sentence), pace, volume, timing, and the overall rhythm of a language.

A benefit of using prosody to emphasize the important words and make them stand out to listeners is that it helps listeners follow your meaning more easily. This is helpful for any situation where you are explaining concepts and processes to a group of listeners, whether you’re a teacher giving a lecture, a student giving a presentation, or at work speaking in a meeting. It helps to break down long sentences into smaller groups, know which words you should emphasize, and practice by imitating other speakers.

Help People Hear What You Mean

First, don’t think in terms of sentences. Think in terms of “thought groups” which are any group of words that express a part of your overall meaning. Divide long stretches of speech into smaller thought groups by using either tiny pauses or by changing the pitch. Go down in pitch at the end of the complete idea to make the information easier to understand by the listener. It is much easier for the brain to take in small groups of meaning because it doesn’t have to hold so much information in short term memory.

Example:

Divide long stretches of speech / into smaller thought groups / by using either tiny pauses / or by changing the pitch./ Go down in pitch / at the end of the complete idea / to make the information easier to understand / by the listener.

Emphasizing important words in thought groups with higher pitch and stretching the vowels longer in the stressed syllables of those words makes the words easier to notice. Those are the words that will stand out to the listener to create more meaning than the less important words. Listeners now have a better chance of noticing and remembering the important words long enough to write/type them in their notes. In the example below, the bold words are emphasized.

Example:

Divide long stretches of speech / into smaller thought groups / by using either tiny pauses / or by changing the pitch. / Go down in pitch / at the end of the complete idea / to make the information easier to understand / by the listener.

How do I know which words to emphasize?

There are words that have a higher probability of being emphasized than others. These are:

1. Any new information being introduced.

2. Contrasting ideas.

3. Question words (e.g., who, what, why, when, where, how)

4. Negative words (e.g., can’t, won’t, never)

5. Adverbs (e.g., really, very, just, always)

6. Adjectives (e.g., wonderful, small, blue)

As the speaker, you have to trust that you know what is important and what you want the listeners to understand. That’s how you’ll know which words to emphasize. 

Help Listeners Follow Your Ideas

There are times you want to emphasize words to help your listeners understand the relationship between the concepts you are talking about, the sequence of ideas or steps, or how the information relates to the listener. Some of the examples below are teaching related, but can be used in any situation.

• Emphasize transitions between concepts or topics and use transitions that show the relationship:

  “..that brings us to the impact this finding had on…” and “Now that we know the basic elements, we can combine them…”

• Emphasize lists and begin with a heading:

  “There are three main reasons why…First, the conditions….”

• Emphasize where the new information is coming from:

  “In this week’s supplemental reading material, the idea of “linking” was described in detail.”

• Emphasize information you’re repeating from previous classes and where it came from:

  “As we discussed last week in the ‘Basics’ chapter…”

• Emphasize the question after you’ve answered it:

  “Why was this an important development?”….”This was an important development because it….”

Practice Prosody

The three stages of progress that everyone goes through when learning a new speaking skill are:

Awareness - Can you hear this thing?

Control - Can you make your voice do that thing?

Analysis - Can you tell if you successfully said the thing?

Sign up to receive an email a day for 30 days

I created the “30 Days of Prosody” to help people increase their awareness, control, and analysis. I’ve chosen 30 video or audio examples and introduce each one with a description of why I chose it. The transcript is provided.

After 30 days, you’ll hear the world around you in a different way. You’ll be much more aware of how people use prosody and gain more control over how you want to sound.

30 Days of Prosody

Join the American English Intonation Meetup group

This group meets every Wednesday at 6:00pm US Eastern time. We practice any phrase, greeting, expression, sentence, or question that people request. I look for which words to emphasize and any connections that are possible between the words.

Visit the Meetup Group Page

Watch the post-Meetup videos on YouTube

After each Meetup, I record myself saying the sentences we practiced together and post them on YouTube, so if you can’t make the live meeting, you can watch the videos.

Adastra Speech YouTube Channel

Try the online course I made, “Introduction to Pitch and Intonation” parts 1 and 2.

There are many audio and video examples of changes in pitch starting with single syllable words like “yes” and increasing up to imitation of a speech in a movie (yes, it’s from “Legally Blonde” :-).

Visit the Course Page

I hope this gives you some good ideas of how to practice prosody. If you have a suggestion of what works well for you, please let me know!

Speaking to New Listeners

It’s time for many people to go back to school either as students or professors, or the combination of both as teaching and research assistants. Maybe you’re starting a new job, have recently moved, or are just in a situation where you will be talking to new people. That means talking to people who are new to listening to your particular accent or way of speaking. Once they have had more time to listen to you, they’ll be more familiar with your style of speaking and their brains will adapt to small differences. However, there are some things you can do to help express your meaning more clearly to get off to a good start.

1. Practice vocabulary

2. Practice prosody

Today, let’s talk about how to practice vocabulary.

1. Start Practicing Your Vocabulary Words

Focusing on the vocabulary used most often in your course, professional field of work, or social speaking situations is a great place to start. Just putting stress on a different syllable of a word can distract listeners and cause them to miss what you said after that, even if every sound in that word was pronounced correctly. There’s also the incorrect assumption that if you can’t pronounce a word well then you must not understand it well. Anyone, not just professors and teachers, may lose credibility in the minds of their listeners if they are mispronouncing an important word. 

Practice those words by looking them up in the dictionary and noticing which syllable is stressed. The stressed syllable will be marked by a tiny little line just before the stressed syllable.

The vowel in that syllable is stretched longer and pronounced with a higher pitch than the vowels in unstressed syllables. Listen to the dictionary’s audio example and repeat.

For example, search for the word “semester” at Merriam-Webster.com and listen to the audio on the website: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semester.

The stress is on the second syllable (“me”), so that should stand out to the listener when you say it.

This word doesn’t have multiple pronunciation options, but many words do have options. The main reason I prefer Merriam-Webster to other dictionaries is that it will show you the optional pronunciations. When you see more than one pronunciation listed, they are in the order of most common to less commonly used.

Another dictionary I like is Dictionary.com because it shows you the pronunciation with the IPA symbols and without. It uses bold to indicate the stressed syllable when written the way it sounds without IPA symbols.

Listen to the audio on the website: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/semester

2. Create Meaningful Vocabulary Lists

Using words that are already meaningful to you means you’ve already stored (encoded) that word in your memory with the context in which it is used and that makes the ability to recall it stronger than words you haven’t used or seen before.

Creating your own word lists to apply word stress patterns to is so much better than a list someone else made for you. You’ve already got the word stored in your memory and it’s easy to recall, now you’re adding a layer of metalinguistic awareness to that word. This means that you’re able to think about and use a word analytically. Attaching this level of analysis to a word that you use in your daily speaking situations increases your awareness of how you are pronouncing it, notice any errors, and know how to change it if you need to.

Listening is practicing speaking if you’re aware of what to listen for. If you’re listening for word stress, the action of practicing specific words or patterns of stress placement will increase your awareness of those words and patterns overall. When you hear a word with that pattern when you’re watching a movie, a video, having a conversation, overhearing other people talking - you’ll notice it more than you would have before.

This is called the frequency illusion or Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. It’s a cognitive bias that happens when your increased awareness of something creates the illusion that it’s occurring more frequently when really, it may have been there the whole time and you just weren’t aware of it. This takes the processes of learning and practice out of the book and into the world all around you where you are really speaking.

Start Practicing

• Most common question: How can you be sure which syllable is stressed?

• Most simple answer: Look it up in the dictionary.

Use an American English dictionary for more than just definitions. Look for:

• Syllables -  division, stress

• Schwa /Ə/ symbol that sounds like “uh”

• Spoken example 

• US vs UK English differences

• Etymology (history) of the word

Keep a Word List (always mark the stressed syllable.)

• New words

• Words that you have mispronounced in the past

• Important words in your field of work or study

• Words that are spelled differently than they sound

Listen to Native Speakers

• Colleagues, teachers, other students, people in stores, tv, movies

• Listen for how they really said it, listen for the stressed syllable

• Repeat after you hear it, even if it’s just humming the pattern without words

• Write it down (compare spoken & written forms)

3. Organize Your Words

Organize your vocabulary words in any way that makes the most sense to you and is easiest for you to remember. If there are words with sounds that you know you have to be more careful with, make lists of words based on those sounds.

I created a spreadsheet with columns for different word stress patterns. You can identify the vowel sound in the stressed syllable in column B. That vowel will be pronounced with a higher pitch and you’ll stretch that vowel longer than the other vowels in the word. Then, type your word in the column that has the same stressed syllable. Now, when you practice words in that column, they will all have the same word stress pattern and you should fall into a rhythm when you say them one after the other.

You can download the spreadsheet from Gumroad for free. That page also has a link to a video of me demonstrating how to use it or you can access it directly on YouTube.

From Words to Sentences

Feeling confident about your word stress is a good step to take to start making improvements to your professional speaking skills. Pronunciation of important words used in your professional speaking life is important because just putting stress on the wrong syllable can reduce your credibility.

Beyond pronunciation, there’s a whole world of benefits of prosody when you use it to express yourself with authority, empathy, friendliness, trustworthiness, and all the ways that people perceive your intentions no matter which words you use. Prosody is also used to direct your listener’s attention to the important words, indicate changes in topics, and order of events. We’ll look at that in more detail in the next post.

Finally

For years, I have been wanting to convert my documents I use in my speech coaching into an online format that includes audio and video examples that I usually demonstrate in person. For years, I would get this started and then get busy and push it down the to-do list. I finally got to a point this year where I shared it with a few people to test drive for me and now I think I’m ready to share it with everyone. I’m sure there will be some kinks to work out, but the best way to find out is to let other people see it so they can let me know how to improve it.

I tried a version of this with a small group, so thank you to the wonderful ladies from my Meetup groups who helped me with this last year! That helped me decide to divide the information into two parts. Part 1 is about gaining awareness and control of pitch and intonation to express meaning and Part 2 is about applying these skills to your own words and being able to identify and imitate other people’s intonation patterns.

There are more details on the homepage of the course.

Link to Course: Introduction to Pitch & Intonation

The goal of this course is to increase your awareness of how pitch and intonation affect how you sound in English, teach strategies to gain control over your voice, and provide practice exercises that help you continue to improve your English speaking skills. 

Thank You!

As a thank you to all of you who read this newsletter, here’s a coupon code to try the Part 1 course for half price ($50 is regular price): speakwell24

The coupon will be good until July 7, 2024 but you will have access to the course for a year.

Look for the small words “Have a coupon?” at the bottom of the purchase page. I circled it below:

Speak Well

I have labeled this as “Independent Study” because I imagined someone using this on their own as they work on improving their English speaking skills. I hope you find the information in the course easy to use and apply to your own speaking situations. I will be using a slightly different version of this with my clients that I work with individually, the main difference being that I am listening to their practice recordings, giving feedback, and practicing in our live meetings online. I put the option of making individual appointments with me for single sessions to practice together at the end of the sections in the course, but however you choose to practice, I hope this increases your awareness of how you sound and how you can continue to improve your English speaking skills.

Link to Course: Introduction to Pitch & Intonation

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to use ChatGPT more and more because I get good ideas from other people. Today, I’ll share with you what I tried and recommend for creating vocabulary lists to practice English. I am grateful that a client gave me this idea and I’m glad that it has been helpful for her. I hope it’s helpful for you as well.

Finding Specific Vocabulary Words

When I’m helping people practice pronunciation I want them to use words that they use often in their daily lives for speaking situations in their jobs. It can be difficult to sit and think about what words you use frequently because you’re so used to them and it’s even more difficult to know which words you may not be pronouncing correctly because nobody points it out to you.

To make a good list of words specific to a person’s area of work, I have them read something that’s related to their work, research, or study material. It’s easier for me to identify which words and sounds need more practice and that’s how I get a list started.

I tried using ChatGPT to create lists specific to a field of work and even more specifically for individual vowel sounds. Here’s how it went and here’s what I learned to input in order to get the best results. I tried the same input in ChatGPT 3.5 and 4o and the results were very similar.

Trial and Error with ChatGPT

By Vowel Sound

What I asked for: “Make me a list of the 20 most common words in UX/UI that contain the vowel sound /Ɛ/.”

What I got:

1. Text

2. Element

3. Edit

4. Menu

5. Selection

6. Developer

7. Template

8. Interaction

9. Element

10. Element

11. Element

12. Element

13. Element

14. Element

15. Element

16. Element

17. Element

18. Element

19. Element

20. Element

By Vowel Sound + No Repetition

Lesson learned, I need to be more specific. So I modified my input: “Make me a list of the 20 most common words in UX/UI that contain the vowel sound /Ɛ/ without any repetition of words.”

What I got:

1. Text

2. Element

3. Edit

4. Menu

5. Selection

6. Developer

7. Template

8. Interaction - X wrong vowel

9. Field - X wrong vowel

10. Preference

11. Prototype - X wrong vowel

12. Refresh

13. Measure

14. Feedback - X wrong vowel

15. Gesture

16. Element - repeat

17. Layout - X wrong vowel

18. Framework - X wrong vowel

19. Preference - repeat

20. Element - repeat

By Vowel Sound + Example + No Repetition

Lesson learned, since it’s giving me words that don’t have the correct vowel sound, I tried giving it an example word: “Make me a list of the 20 most common words in UX/UI that contain the vowel sound /Ɛ/ as in the word "head" without any repetition of words.”

What I got:

1. Header

2. Element

3. Menus

4. Selection

5. Developer

6. Template

7. Interaction - X wrong vowel

8. Preference

9. Refresh

10. Measure

11. Feedback - X wrong vowel

12. Gesture

13. Layout - X wrong vowel

14. Framework - X wrong vowel

15. Presenter

16. Sketch

17. Prototype - X wrong vowel

18. Refresh - repeat

19. Texture

20. Metric

That didn’t seem to make much difference because it still gave me words that don’t have that vowel sound. So the next time I asked for 30 words so I could eliminate the wrong ones and still get 20 words that have the correct vowel sound.

By Number of Syllables

That made wonder if I should specify I want the vowel I’m looking for in the stressed syllable so I asked for: “Make me a list of 30 words used in UX/UI that contain the vowel sound /Ɛ/ as in the word "head" without any repetition of words. All words must have three syllables. The vowel /Ɛ/ must be in the stressed syllable as in the word "selection."“

What I got:

1. Selection

2. Presentation - X wrong vowel

3. Developer

4. Interaction - X wrong vowel

5. Preference

6. Register

7. Element

8. Development

9. Expression

10. Detection

11. Reflection

12. Detection - repeat

13. Perspective

14. Rejection

15. Collection

16. Detection - repeat

17. Reflection - repeat

18. Perception

19. Infection

20. Connection

21. Detection - repeat

22. Correction

23. Expression - repeat

24. Inspection

25. Infection - repeat

26. Detection - repeat

27. Detection - repeat

28. Perception - repeat

29. Perception - repeat

30. Expression - repeat

Lesson learned, it did fine when I just asked for words with three syllables, but didn’t do well with understanding the stressed syllable.

Most Effective Prompts

Give an Example

If you’re just looking for words with a specific vowel sound, use the IPA symbol and an example word: the vowel sound /Ɛ/ as in the word "head"

What if you don’t know the IPA symbol? Look up a word you know has the sound you want to use, then copy the symbol. Using Dictionary.com is helpful because it will show you how it sounds in regular letters and also IPA symbols. Here’s the entry for “head” on Dictionary.com.

Avoid Repetitions

I tried the phrase, “without any repetition of words,” and still got some repetitions but not nearly as many as I did the first time when I got 12 listings of “element.”

Ask for More Than You Need

Since I know I’ll probably get some repetitions of words and some words that don’t have the correct vowel sound, I asked for more than I needed so I could still get a good amount that I wanted.

Double Check

After all of that, I recommend that you still look up the words it gives you because not all of them had the correct vowel sound, especially when I asked for that sound in the stressed syllable.

That’s good practice anyway since if you ask for words with more than one syllable, you need to know which syllable is stressed. The dictionary will show you with a little line at the top left corner of the syllable that’s stressed. Here’s what it looks like for the word “element”: /ˈɛl ə mənt/. Stress is on the first syllable: EL-uh-muhnt. You pronounce that syllable with higher pitch and stretch the vowel.

Use It

After all of that, is it worth it? Yes. I have lots of books and websites I use to create vocabulary lists based on specific sounds and also by types of jobs. This saved so much time even if it took some editing on my part. If you’re not asking for such specific details like one vowel sound, then it’s much easier to get lists of words that are common to the topic you’re looking for.

As ChatGPT said after each result, “These words are commonly used in UX/UI design and development to describe various elements, components, and functionalities.”

Prompts that Worked Best

Make me a list of the 30 most common words in ____ (insert the topic you want) that contain the vowel sound ___ (insert vowel sound IPA symbol) as in the word “___” (insert example word with that vowel sound) without any repetition of words.”

Make me a list of 30 words used in ____ (insert the topic you want) without any repetition of words. All words must have _____ (insert how many syllables you want) syllables.

Suggestions?

Have you been trying something like this to help you practice vocabulary words that are the most useful for you? Let me know what has worked best for you. I’d love to learn how to get better at this!

This is an exciting thing to be confused about. I’ve gotten wonderful suggestions from many friends, family, and former colleagues and I’ve narrowed it down but would like to share these possibilities with all of you and get your opinions as well.

Here’s the previous newsletter about what I’ve been working on.

Basically, this book is a guide to understanding what defines an accent and how to make changes to increase speech clarity. It is for people who speak English with the influence of another language who want to communicate clearly in American English as well as teachers of English to non-native speakers.

There’s much more to being understood than pronunciation. You can pronounce everything perfectly but still not be easy to understand, so what’s next? Speaking involves how people think - about how their voice truly represents them, how good they are at communication in general, and how confident they feel to speak in a different way.

This book provides techniques to make changes to speech to increase the effectiveness of speaking English overall. The goal is to help people gain the skill to analyze their own speech to become life-long learners so they can practice with the confidence that they have control of how they want to sound.

The next book, or more likely a website, will get into the details of pronunciation with lots of examples for practice. This book is about the mindset of making changes. I can’t decide whether to focus on the “pronunciation” side of things or the “thinking” side of things since they are both relevant. I also wonder if I should be considering what words people search for when looking for a book like this.

What do you think?

What about the subtitle that can be more descriptive? I can only put a small amount of text in the poll choices so I’m making two polls to get the whole subtitles in the heading:

Or

The polls will be open for 3 days so don’t overthink it as much as I have. If you go with your gut, just based on the little you know right now, what do you like? If you have a completely different suggestion, I’d like to hear that as well! Please leave a comment or send me a message directly.

Leave a comment

Thank you!

In With the New

In addition to online group instruction, another change I’m making this spring is to the private speech coaching I do. Similar to the monthly meetings in the group, I’m modifying my private lessons to make it easier to follow the cycle approach that I believe works best. I’ve divided it into quarters so the complete course takes one year, but stays on track with monthly, weekly, and daily speech practice.

New Individual Coaching Format

The first three months can be taken on its own as a “Quick Start” program that focuses on the main areas of prosody, word stress, and pronunciation. It begins with a full speech evaluation. Everything is modified for different languages so the practice includes specific sounds or intonation issues that are unique to the influence of other languages on English.

The next three cycles are three months each and focus on the higher-level aspects of American English such as pitch range and intonation in cycle 2, the details of pronunciation in cycle 3, and the integration and application of all the skills to your professional speaking situations.

The set of 10 lessons and three evaluations that I’ve been doing for quite a while usually take people a year to complete so this 12-month program isn’t a big change. What’s different is the structured approach to each cycle and each month within the cycle. Each month includes:

• Lesson on a specific speech feature

• Feedback on all practice recordings

• Daily prompts for mini-practice (can be done in under 5 minutes)

• Weekly check-ins

• Monthly speech evaluation update

Even with the new organization, there will always be application to your vocabulary and language you use in your professional speaking situations. The great benefit of private speech coaching is that it is immediately applicable to your daily speech.

If you’d like to learn more about private speech coaching, you can schedule a free consultation here:

Schedule a Consultation