Lindsay McMahon

We talk about accents a lot.

We have a lot of students ask us, how do I improve my accent or fix or change or remove my accent?

And chatting with you, I've seen that what you write in this book and what you have discovered is very much aligned with what we believe here at All Ears English.

Yes, absolutely.

You have heard this from us before, listeners out there, and we recently –

released our pronunciation course.

And it wasn't about imitating the American or UK accent.

It was more about learning how to make sure your speech is clear with whatever beautiful accent you have.

Those features of connected speech, the phonemes that might be problematic from your first language.

There are things you can do to make sure your speech is clear, but you should keep your accent.

Your accent is beautiful.

I don't know about you, Valerie, but most Americans I know love an accent.

Yes.

And our whole goal here, we know that you listeners agree, is connection, not perfection.

So you can connect with your accent, right?

Yes, you want to make sure your speech is understood, but you would never want fear of

of your accent being unclear to keep you from a conversation, from connecting in English.

So Valerie, I'm excited for you to share three tips for listeners today who might be worried, might have some of these fears of things that you can do to be able to connect in English with an accent.

You may have no sounds that require you to stick your tongue out between your teeth.

Yes, I definitely saw this with French, the first language that I learned with the sound, which was so foreign for my mouth to make.