My students often worry about clear pronunciation at work. Not being understood by colleagues and clients because of their accent is a source of anxiety for many foreign-born professionals working in the US.
Below are four tips to help you improve your accent fast and feel more confident about your pronunciation at work.
Tip 1 – Learn all of the words that you regularly use at your workplace and make it your goal to pronounce them correctly.
Do not assume that you are pronouncing all of the work-related terminologies correctly.
Make a list of 30 to 40 of the most common words related to your job, then look up the pronunciation online. Or if possible, ask a native speaker to record those words for you or record yourself saying the words.
Practice pronouncing these words until you feel confident.
Sometimes people may not want to tell you that they do not understand you. They might nod their heads, but in actuality, they may be confused by what you said.
If you fix the pronunciation of those keywords, your accent will be easier to understand. You do not have to know everything about English pronunciation. Focus on your list of keywords, and your overall pronunciation will come across much more smoothly.
Tip 2 – Slow down when you are speaking.
Most people speak too quickly without realizing it. Non-native speakers sometimes speak English fast because they want to give the impression that they are fluent in English. They hear native speakers speaking fast, so they do the same. Native speakers do speak quickly, but they unconsciously follow the rules of stress and reduction.
When you speak quickly, you may randomly be reducing the words that should be stressed and stressing the words that should be reduced. This may sound foreign to a native speaker’s ear and as a result, your speech might be hard to understand.
Speaking a bit more slowly will prevent this from happening.
Tip 3 – Make an effort to pronounce all of the consonants.
When we speak quickly our consonants usually become less clear. Consonants require the lips and tongue to move and make contact. When you speak fast, you might get sloppy with your consonants and you might sound like you are mumbling, which makes your speech harder to understand.
Additionally, your native language may not have the same consonant combination patterns as English, especially at the ends of words. Therefore, I suggest that you take the time to move your mouth well and fully articulate the consonant sounds of each word.
Remember: professional speech is clear speech.
Tip 4 – Stress the keywords in a sentence and reduce the unimportant words.
Each language has its melody and rhythm. You are probably not conscious of the stress patterns of your native language and how this may influence your accent when you are speaking English. It is hard to be analytical about one’s native language.
In some languages, the first word is always stressed. In that case, the beginning of the sentence sounds loud and strong.
In English, we stress the key words the most. Key words are generally nouns and verbs.
For example, when we say: “You did a good job.” the last word, “job” should get the most stress.
Changing the emphasis (stress) often changes the meaning. In the above sentence, if we stress “you”, the implied meaning could be: “You are the only one that did a good job. The others did a bad job.”
Avoid stressing words that are not key words. That includes pronouns, prepositions, and articles.
Do not say, “I need to talk to you.”
Instead, say: “I need to talk to you.”
To stress a word, say it more loudly, and prolong the main vowel sound of that word.
Keep working on your accent. Meanwhile, don’t allow your insecurity about your accent to paralyze you. Slow down and use a strong, powerful voice.
You have something important to say. Say it with confidence!
Watch the video version explaining these four tips.