Hey everyone, Chris one here. And this is accident out loud a podcast by Lucid accent Consulting your weekly Glimpse on one person's take on English language learning accents experimentation and learning. What's up, big boy? And this episode's it's a bit of a rant. I think they're or maybe a bit more of a thought. No, I'm not really ranting about anything. But there's two ways that I think people should be approaching accent learning or accent modification in communication enhancement, and these are sort of Left and right field so bear with me on describing what I think people should be doing one way. Is that sort of traditional way and I think people in the traditional way there's a lot of foundational work that should be learned. So when you are learning how to make sounds differently you have to have a basis of understanding so a you have to learn what mouth parts are involved in speech and say sound production specific to sounds that are produced from air flow from the lungs pulmonic sounds if we've got some Linguistics people that are geeking out about this type of thing or arguing semantics and in that and in this sort of way, I'm trying to build content. So we have this episode 3 of my podcast was about producing or what mouth parts are involved in producing sound episode 4 is about the edge. National phonetic alphabet and sort of how people make sounds what is the manner of articulation and where is the focal point of airflow obstruction or what are the articulator is involved main main articular leaders involved in this sound production. So if you were to take talking about the S sound we know it's a fricative. So it's turbulent airflow through a narrow passage and And it is alveolar. So the tongue is touching the ridge behind the upper teeth. So that's just the traditional aspect of traditional way that I think people should be learning you learn what's involved in speech. You'll learn how we categorize sounds and speech and then you start building from that. Do I have all the sounds or English sounds and do I have them properly? If you don't have the th sound then you work on the th Zone. If you don't have the V sound then you work on the Visa. If you don't have the shutter sound the sh sound you work on the sh sound and then you do that systematically picking up those things that you are missing the other way that I think you can also Target is functionally so picking which words which phrases that you need whether this is for work and you are calling clients and they have specific trouble with certain words write down all the words write down all the phrase. Has that you use on a daily basis. Hi. Good morning. How are you? I'm calling from blank. Are you interested in a new cell phone plan? I don't know things like that. If you pick up those specific phrases write them all down so that you have a list of like, I don't know a 10-page list of words that you or words or phrases that you always use if you can practice that paragraph that phrase that word then you can dissect. We you say it to have somebody else has it. And that's a very narrowed Focus way of attacking accent modification. If you write down all these words you identify. These are the words that I have trouble with or these are the words that clients friends strangers told me I have I noticed that they asked me to repeat myself on find somebody who is a native English speaker record how they say it compared to how you say it. Now you have a sample of native English speech and your speech So let's say you have trouble with a word. Let's say the word is theater. I want you to record yourself saying the word theater record a native English speaker who says the same word theater and then compare the to try and listen. What's the difference? Let's say you say Cierra Cierra. So you're listening theater Sita theater Sierra de you noticed the th sound I replace it with an S. So then you have to work on that. And then maybe with that practice you get to the point of saying theater theater. Not quite the same as the native English speaker Let's Pretend This is North American English and you get theater versus theater theater theater and then you notice hey that the other thing that's wrong or the other thing that's different is the r sound. I don't fully make that hard r that is common in North American English. I want to work on that part. So then you have to do theater to theater theater theater. And then once you get more comfortable with it, then you have the word theater theater theater when you put that into a sentence, maybe you use it in a functional phrase. Maybe you work at a Cineplex or a movie theater and you have to greet the guests and you say welcome to the theater right maybe. First you used to say welcome to the theater. And then you change that do welcome to the theater. Welcome to the theater and slowly over time. You have to remember to say that our sound and then you do welcome to the theater. Welcome to the theater. Welcome to the theater. You got to put it in perspective analyze each part and attack each part, that's different. And then slowly by slowly you work on those phrases that are functional for you that you're going to use every day. And then you tackle them one by one one by one until you have all the sounds that you need. And nobody's nobody notices are nobody asks you to repeat yourself anymore. That's the other way that you can approach accent modification. The one thing about that or the caveat behind that is that if you are tackling it on a case-by-case basis, then you're not tackling the process. So what I mean by that is if you are tackling it on a case-by-case. This theater for example. I worry that you don't realize or you don't take the time to learn the process which maybe is all th sounds are this way. So then if you go to Another word like thin maybe you you can say theater, but you go back to saying sin instead of thin. That's the thing that I think I am not one specific scenario gravitate more towards your traditional way of learning. The first one that I was talking about. But if the final outcome of option b or option 2 of approaching accent modification is that if you've addressed the functional words that you've used that you need to use then is that good enough for you are you content with Practicing and improving the 100 words or 100 phrases that you always use and the rest don't matter as much it's up to you guys which one you pick but those are just my thoughts on that. I don't know. I was inspired to think about that and talk about that today. Hopefully I can keep turning these out on a more regular basis because I do have a lot of random thoughts like this every once in a while definitely more than a weekly basis, but Let me know what you think. Do you like these ones more than the long-form educational ones? Anyways, have a good one.
Sharing my thoughts on how to approach accent modification and what are two ways to approach the issue. by better having an understanding of how to approach accent modification as a whole, you can better understand the impact of approaching accent modification in one way or another. The traditional method builds a foundational understanding of sound production, manner of articulation, and placement to ensure you have an understanding of the sounds involved. The other method is to choose functional words you use on a daily basis and targeting those specific sounds and words to ultimately alleviate frustrations in communication that currently impact your communicative success. About the Show: AccentOutLoud is your weekly source for English communication,     insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Thursday (and    sometimes  more) I'll share my personal take on English communication,     tips of English communication and what I think is important in clear    communication. If you have an interest in improving your English    communication, learning a speech-language pathologist's perspective on    the field, or just want uniquely interesting podcast, you're sure to    find something useful in each episode. It's my hope that you'll  become  a  fan and gain a better appreciation and understanding of what  is   involved in your accent as a result! AccentOutLoud is proudly made by me, a one-man team from Lucid Accent Consulting. Feel free to get in touch for any thoughts, ideas, or  feedback Check me out on Instagram - www.instagram.com/LucidAccent/ Check me out on Facebook - www.facebook.com/KrisWanLucidAccent/ 