3 Tricks to Help You Reduce Your Accent

Do you struggle with being understood because of a thick accent? You may wonder if accent reduction could help you gain more opportunities or make new friends. A person with a heavy accent may notice the following:

• People ask them to repeat themselves often
• Other people just nod or stare when you speak
• You have missed out on a promotion or other opportunity for no obvious reason

Accent reduction can eliminate these problems while still allowing you to have a unique accent. You won’t sound like everybody else, but you will be understood. Working with an accent reduction coach is the best way to learn how to modify your accent. However, there are some tricks you can try on your own or in addition to working with a coach.

1. Listen to Locals and Emulate Them
   Listen to how the local people say certain words and phrases and imitate them. You can listen to a local radio or TV show or sit in a coffee shop and listen in on conversations. Zone in on specific phrases or sounds and learn how they are pronounced.

You may want to ask friends which words or sounds are the most difficult to understand. Work on those until they become clear for your audience.

2. Read and Listen to the Dictionary

You can look up words in the dictionary to see how they are pronounced. With online dictionaries, you can even hear the pronunciation which will help you copy it correctly. You can even find apps to install on your phone or tablet, which will enable you to hear correct enunciation.

3. Find a Practice Partner

The only way to get better at speaking English is to practice with a native speaker or someone who has mastered the language. Find someone who will work with you and have regular conversations. They will be the most help if they call your attention to areas that need improvement.

You can practice having a job interview, talking to customers or just have a regular conversation. Make sure you work with someone who is willing to tell you the truth about what you say.

Bonus Tip: slow down when you speak. It will be easier to pay attention to what you’re saying and to speak more clearly. Think about what you’re saying until it become second nature to speak that way.

You can either try these tips to help you speak more clearly and reduce your accent or you can use them along with hiring an accent reduction coach to teach you about proper enunciation. Don’t get discouraged or think you are limited if you struggle to be understood. There are ways to overcome the challenges of a heavy accent.

Let your accent be a unique part of who you are and not a stumbling block which prevents you from making connections and creating new relationships. Learn how to reduce your accent and be understood whenever you have something to say.

Make a Good First Impression as a Public Speaker

You’ve undoubtedly listened to public speakers who were amazing, and then some of them were forgettable. Some inspired you to action while others talked you into a slumber. If you want to make a good first impression and capture your audience’s attention, follow these tips.

Speak Clearly

No matter what else you do, you must make sure your audience can understand what you’re saying. Regardless of how earth-shattering what you have to say might be, it won’t make much of an impact if the listeners miss the message.

If you have a strong accent, you may need to hire an accent reduction coach to help you improve your delivery. They can help you enunciate clearly so that you are understood. If there are other speaking issues, a business speech coach can work with you to overcome them.

Start Off Strong

Once you are speaking clearly enough to be understood, you need to create an opening that gets attention. So many speakers start off by easing into their message. They may tell something about themselves or talk about the city where they are speaking.

You have several options to capture the attention of your audience right from the start. Begin with unbelievable statistics or a quote from a famous person. Tell them a heart-rending story. Your opening should invoke emotion, whether that be anger, fear, sadness or admiration.

Play It Straight

Keep your listeners attention by sticking to the point. It’s okay to sprinkle in a few stories or jokes if your speech allows for it, but don’t lose your message. Far too many public speakers tell entertaining stories that the audience remembers but they forget the point of the speech. Don’t let your side stories take over your speech.

It’s common for speakers to try to make their speech more exciting by adding in extra features. They tell funny stories, add lights and sounds and include props to get the attention of listeners. While this might make them more entertaining, it doesn’t make the subject of the speech memorable.

Instead of trying to be entertaining, focus on how you can make your subject appeal to the audience. Get the message across by using vivid wording or using real-life stories. Even the driest subject can come alive under the right speaker.

Close with a Call

Your audience is more likely to remember the last thing you say, so make your final statements memorable. Give them a call to action so they have something to do when they leave the seminar or conference.

Your call to action should be short and urgent. Get people to take action right away and they won’t forget what you had to say.

It can be difficult to be a powerful public speaker if you don’t have a bold personality. However, you can work on your presentation and follow a few solid tips. As you improve your speaking ability and focus on the quality of your speech, you’ll capture your audience’s attention.

Speech Reduction: Why How You Speak Matters As Much As What You Say

People are constantly being judged by first impressions, and that may include their speech. It’s not just about what they are saying but about how they say it. From the phrases they use to how fast they speak, others will form an idea about a person even if they have never met them before.

Slow Down

One of the most important things you can do to make a better first impression with your speech is to slow down. Speak slowly so others can understand what you are saying. Don’t worry that others will think you can’t keep up. When you speak at a slower pace, it’s easier for you to communicate more clearly.

Think About What You Want to Say

Think about your words before you begin to speak. If you aren’t a native English speaker, some terms may be unfamiliar or you may be searching for the right word to convey your thoughts. Take the time to choose the right word, remembering that the simplest word is often the best.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

There is nothing wrong with asking someone to help you if you can’t think of a word. It’s also a good idea to hire a speech reduction coach who can help you learn how to sound more like a native. They can help you learn how to enunciate clearly and teach you the right words and phrases to use. You’ll learn how to slow your speech down until you’ve mastered the language.

Listen to others speak. Emulate not only what they say but how they speak. Learn how to use local terms and speak in a more relaxed manner. It will help you communicate with others around you in a way that seems natural to them. You’ll pick up terms that are common in this region and learn how to use them appropriately.

As you learn to be a better communicator, focus not only on what you are saying to people but how you say it.

Why Accent Reduction Isn’t Wrong to Consider

The idea of accent reduction has received some criticism from those who believe it’s not being true to oneself. They claim that a person who wants to “lose their accent” is really trying to hide who they are. However, this may not really be the case.

Why Accent Reduction Isn’t About You

Reducing one’s accent isn’t about denying your heritage or pretending you’re someone else. To suggest that someone go through a course which modifies or reduces their accent isn’t to try to make them different than they really are.

To reduce a person’s accent is to help them communicate better. It improves their chances to get a promotion, develop friendships and network easier. Instead of working against a person, accent reduction helps them build a new life in their new home where they can build relationships.

Why Accent Reduction May be Necessary

It’s all too easy to be overlooked for jobs and other opportunities if people struggle to understand what you say. You may find that others win the job promotion that should have been yours. Miscommunication can cause issues and serious misunderstandings in the business world that impact you for the future.

It’s important to realize that reducing an accent isn’t the same as removing it completely. You learn to speak more clearly and enunciate sounds and words correctly. However, the basic accent is still there, just less noticeable.

You also have to understand that more than just the accent defines who you are. No matter whether you come from another country or just a different region in the same country, you still carry that heritage with you. For example, more than that Southern twang defines you as the person from Mississippi or Alabama. It’s about how you grew up and the values you learned.

Accent reduction can be an important way to help you move up in your career or to feel comfortable in your new home city. Don’t be afraid to try accent modification if it helps you achieve your goals.

How a Dialect Coach in Los Angeles Can Help Your Business Grow

Thanks to the internet, the world has become a lot smaller. Instead of focusing on doing business with clients in the same town or even the same state, it is now possible to have customers or business partners from across the country or even elsewhere in the world. While the internet has enhanced the opportunities of a global economy it has not completely removed the necessity of in-person interactions.

There are times when an email just isn’t enough or the chance of unclear communication requires a verbal response. During those situations, you may find the language barrier can cause effective communication to be delayed or even completely broken down. Hiring a professional dialect coach in Los Angeles can help you speak clearer English in all of your business interactions.

The Importance of Clear English in the U.S.

Even if your only business relationships happen inside the U.S. you may benefit from having a dialect coach train you on more clear enunciation. Just listen to people talk from the different parts of the country. You hear the slow drawl of the South or the clipped tones of the Mid-Atlantic areas. Even within a region, you can find various dialects.

While this variation is one of the great things about American English, it can make it difficult to understand someone from another part of the country when they speak. As professionals, it is important to convey your message in a clearly understood way. People often don’t think about how they talk until someone points out their dialects. If you are trying to sell a product or service or draw up a contract, you want to make sure the other person understands what you are saying. Getting your message across clearly can help prevent misunderstandings and even improve your chances of a sale.

The Issues with Poor Enunciation

If you do not enunciate your words clearly, you may have several results with your listeners. You may be regarded as less intelligent because you of an accent that hinders your presentation. You may lose your client or customer because they do not understand you. The third result is that your listener may hear something other than what you are saying.

All of these issues lead to undesirable results. You may lose the sale or your customer may miss out on important information, causing dissatisfaction. By hiring a dialect coach in Los Angeles, you can communicate more clearly regardless of the natural dialect you have.

A dialect coach helps you become more aware of how you speak. Just paying attention to your words can help you improve. You also learn how to enunciate clearer and stop bad habits that you have formed over time from listening to others.

If you want to be seen as someone who can communicate clearly and precisely, consider hiring a dialect coach to help improve your enunciation skills. You might be surprised at the change in people when they listen to you speak.

Why You Need an Accent Coach for Your Business

You may have heard about accent coaches, and you may think they provide services for actors. While that is one aspect of their job, they also provide a valuable skill for business people. Hiring an accent coach can help improve communication in your business.

Speak Clearly

One of the primary benefits of hiring an accent or dialect coach is that you will learn to speak more clearly. A coach can teach you to enunciate your words for better understanding. If you are not sure how this could benefit you, consider these scenarios:

• You are speaking at a conference in another part of the country and you have a strong accent.
• You are talking with a client from another part of the world through a video meeting.
• You are training your staff in a seminar.
• You are doing a presentation of your product or service to potential clients or customers.

In each one of these situations, speaking clearly so that you can be understood can enhance your results. You will be more likely to convince customers to give your product a try or win over a current client on a new idea. You will be able to communicate with your staff how to implement a new procedure or teach others at a conference about your industry or business.

If you have a strong accent or poor enunciation skills, your audience may misunderstand what you are saying. The result could be lost sales or ineffective instructions to your staff. You could have a misunderstanding on how to proceed on a project because someone didn’t know what you said.

What Training Do You Need?

The kind of training will depend on your particular situation and the goals you have for your business. Perhaps you want to become a public speaker who can attend conferences around the country. Maybe you have a thick accent that you want to lose to communicate more effectively with clients in other parts of the country.

When you work with an accent coach, he or she will help you learn how to enunciate every word correctly. This will reduce the sound of your accent and make it easier for people to understand you. You can also learn how to understand other people’s accents. This could be an important trait to learn if you will be opening an office in another part of the country or internationally.

You may decide that members of your staff can benefit from this same training. If you have managers who work with people around the globe or if they will be setting up offices in other locations, they may need to learn how to speak well to be understood.

Effective communication is essential in today’s business world. While many think of written communication, spoken communication is just as important. Being heard and understood can have a significant impact on the bottom line on your business. As you work with people from around the world, you must learn how to speak effectively and clearly.