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 21, 2012 | American Pronunciation, Vowel Sounds
A word’s meaning is often shaped by the way it sounds. A few examples will make this obvious. Take, for example, the exclamations “Wow”, “Cool”, and “Yuck”. But did you know that the way words sound can actually influence our buying decisions? This phenomenon...
