by Judy Ravin | Apr 22, 2012 | Syllable Stress, Throat Singing, Vowel Sounds
…And if English isn’t your first language, Anglophonic proficiency is no easy accomplishment. Like the more well known word, Francophone, an Anglophone is someone who speaks, in this case, English. “Anglo” comes from Latin and means ‘the...
by Judy Ravin | Apr 22, 2012 | Accent Modification, Accent Neutralization, Accent Reduction, American Accent Training, Heavy Accent, Syllable Stress, Vowel Sounds
“I just don’t get it. I’ve been here for 23 years and I still have a heavy accent. How come?” I heard this question last week when I was sitting next to a businessman on a flight. He was super smart, savvy, and an “in on the know” professional. His...
by Judy Ravin | Apr 22, 2012 | American Accent, American Accent Training, Corporate Training, Diversity, Syllable Stress, Vowel Sounds
We’re all partial to names. The study of names is called onomastics and, for those of us in the field, it’s a branch of sociolinguistics of great interest, geeky though it may be. Historically speaking, the giving of surnames typically originated from one...
by Judy Ravin | Apr 21, 2012 | Accent Acquisition, Accent Reduction, American Accent, American Accent Training, Syllable Stress, Vowel Sounds
Many of us have heard that when a person, sadly, loses their vision, their hearing gets better. Sometimes their hearing gets extraordinarily better. Recently I came across an article in the New York Times that discussed a similar phenomenon, albeit with a twist. In...
by Judy Ravin | Apr 20, 2012 | American Accent, American Pronunciation, Communication Skills, Syllable Stress
This has been a week of interviews…with USA Today, followed by CBS-Radio National News, followed by Lucy Ann Lance Talk Radio. Wow! From the boardroom to the locker room, most everyone knows that language barriers are the norm in today’s multinational...
