Lisa’s Blog

Make a New Year's resolution to improve your speaking skills. I recommend that you join Toastmasters. Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of meeting...

A reader of my blog asked the following question:Hi Lisa, My name is George, I just read your blog, could you please recommend me which audio book is better for learning English? Could you please give me some names of these audio books? I appreciate...

An article in today's LA Times states that babies are found to cry in their native tongue. They hear the melody and intonation while they are still in the womb and imitate it once they are born. Read the article:...

Do you have young children who are learning both English and your native language? Here's a very interesting article which discusses the benefits of speaking two languages.For adults, it also states: "New research even indicates that the onset of Alzheimer's disease...

Here is a great way to work on improving your American accent:Buy a book on audio. I suggest a non-fiction topic because the speech is generally better suited for this type of practice. Listen to a sentence or a phrase, then pause it and repeat what the speaker said....

Alex asks:Hello Lisa,You say in your book that the final "s" in the words "is" and "has" is pronounced as /z/. Then what if when "it is" and "it has" are contracted to "it's", does the "s" remain /z/ sound? Many thanks,AlexHi Alex,When "it is" is contracted to "it's"...

Paolo asks:Is singing songs a good way to improve my pronunciaton or not? I'm just asking because sometimes rappers or singers tend to pronounce words with a different "cadence" just to make them rhyme with one another, what do you think?Yes, singing is a great for...

Take a look at my new video that will teach you how to correctly pronounce the word "world." Almost all of my students have a hard time with this word. It consists of combinations of sounds that don't exist in other languages.

Here are some interesting quotes from some famous people discussing how their accents have affected their lives:I learned to change my accent; in England, your accent identifies you very strongly with a class, and I did not want to be held back. StingI guess when I...