Does Exercise Strengthen Speech Muscles?

You already know that specific exercise will strengthen your skeletal muscles—for example leg muscles for running, football—both soccer and American football– and  arm muscles and upper body exercise for many sports, including tennis.   What about muscles for human speaking?  Skeletal muscle is found throughout the body, attached to bones via tendons. It is also […]

Accent reduction: Key Skill- Get the Vowels

Accent reduction: Key Skill – Get the Vowels Have you noticed that people are most likely to say to you “What?”  “What did you say?” after you have said a multiple syllable word? Critical information for multiple syllable words– each syllable has a meaning and there are 14 vowel sounds (some people say 17) for […]

Get “s” and “z” for Grammar “s”

Surprising but true, along with “r” and “l” pronunciation, “s” is most difficult for native-born children in North America. It’s critical for grammar for plurals, subject- verb agreement (“I sit” but “she sits”) and for possessive (“The house belongs to Sam” and “Sam’s house.” Added to the pronunciation difficulty is that “Grammar s” is always […]

100 Most Common English Words – And What To Do With Them -Yay!

BLOG #191   Friday, Dec. 11, 2020 100 Most Common English Words– And What to Do With Them- Yay     In this blog you will find a list of the 100 Most Common English words.  Studies that estimate and rank these look at written texts. This list comes from the Oxford English Corpus (OEC) from 2 […]

Speech Tip #1

English Speech Tip 1: l, r, e “clear” In this video Dr. Antonia Johnson shows how to pronounce the American English word “clear.” She focuses on the English l, r, and long ē sounds. Let us know what sounds or words you would like help with!